Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

A couple of milestones have just occurred: this past weekend marked the 25th anniversary of my coming to live in San Francisco – more precisely, to move into the Zen Center. In my head I had it that I arrived from London, with two big bags and a bike in a box, on the 12th or 13th, but I do remember that it was a Friday afternoon, and when I looked back at a calendar for the year 2000, the Friday was the 11th. I was a week late for the practice period (I had very little control over timing for the visa interview), and I pretty much went straight to bed that day, but I was up for the morning schedule on the Saturday. 

My memories include seeing Idilio out of the corner of my eye, scurrying (to my mind) in black robes; He was Blanche’s jisha and was carrying the incense to the altar for her. There were lots of people in black, and lots of silence. If there was oryoki that day I skipped it. I think Linda Ruth gave the talk. The ino at the time was hard of hearing, and the amplification sounded terrible (I think I volunteered my services within a week or two, having just completed ten years working in radio sound); the sun poured through the windows of the Buddha Hall and warmed the back of my head while Linda Ruth talked.

By the end of the morning schedule, I was quite worn out, but then had the rest of the weekend to settle in and meet everyone. I was given the job of being jiko and carrying the incense in for the afternoon doshi on Monday before I had even sat a period of afternoon zazen. But I got used to it all very quickly. And it led me here, obviously.

The other significant number is that yesterday’s was the 3500th post on this blog. This endeavour has been going for just shy of ten years now. I confess that from time to tiime I do wonder about discontinuing it, as it is one of many things I devote time to during my week that do not provide much in the way of revenue, and right now, as at other times, I need to be drumming up a little more of that in order for my life to be sustainable. Occasionally I get reminders from readers of the value they find in a daily dharma offering, and I also get nudges from quotes like this:

‘Buddhist trainees do very little for themselves. How can they do anything for fame and profit? They must train in Buddhism only for Buddhism. The various Buddhas, feeling deep compassion for all beings, do nothing for themselves or for others. They merely act for Buddhism. This is the Buddhist tradition.’ (Gakudo Yojinshu)