2021 FALL PRACTICE PERIOD

What is Gratitude?

When Maezumi Roshi said, “Appreciate your life,” he was pointing to gratitude. Make gratitude the unshakeable foundation of your life. Gratitude is an attitude to cultivate daily. You can be grateful for your innate capacity to drop the wandering, ruminating, storytelling mind and return to this moment, here, now. You can be grateful for knowing a method that you can return to in any moment to be present—mindfulness, labelling, counting, Mu-ing, breath! You can be grateful for Not-Knowing. You can be grateful for recognizing ego-centeredness when it arises and grateful for the capacity to move beyond thinking.

Everyday you receive the boundless offerings of life itself. The trees give forth oxygen, the rain replenishes, the wind blows smoke away. Your heart pumps rich blood throughout your body, your lungs fill with air, your skin registers the hot and cold. These offerings, freely given, call forth acts of reciprocity from you: How do you take care of the very life you are offered? How do you take care of body-mind, the trees outside your door, your clothes, your meals?

Every moment, we are situated in the vast web of mutuality and inter-being. So many people and innumerable labors support your life. Raise your awareness of these efforts and connections. Ground yourself in gratitude for all that you receive. Raise the heart-mind of reciprocity. The practice of gratitude is one of profound humility.

Here are some suggestions for the daily practice of gratitude:

• upon waking up in the morning, speak gratitude for a new day.
• upon going to sleep at night, speak gratitude for all that you received that day.
• upon waking up in the middle of the night, contemplate gratitude.
• before a meal, express gratitude with words and offering.
• after a meal, express gratitude, saying how you will use this energy.
• express gratitude at the end of every conversation.
• speak words of gratitude out loud everyday.
• everyday, name five new people/things you are grateful for, without repeating anything on your list.
• other?

PRACTICE PERIOD ENTERING

You are invited and encouraged to attend the opening ceremonies for the Fall Practice Period. On Saturday morning, October 2nd at 9:00 AM, please attend the Entering Ceremony for all participants and the Head Trainee Leave-taking and new Head Trainee Entering Ceremonies. The Sangha will attend via the ZCLA Live Zoom room. Details will be sent by the Program Steward. The Closing Ceremony will be held on December 31st.

ENTERING HEAD TRAINEES

Head Trainee Reeb Kaizen Venners

Kaizen will enter as the 2021-2022 ZCLA Head Trainee on Saturday, October 2nd. Kaizen is a long-time Zen practitioner and Resident member. He serves the Sangha as the Resident Steward and web developer. He works as a film editor. Kaizen’s training year will be under the guidance of Roshi Kipp Ryodo Hawley.

From Roshi Ryodo:

“I feel honored to be Kaizen’s guide during his year as Head Trainee. In Soto training temples the Shuso, translated as “Chief Junior” or “Head Trainee”, directly supervises the novice priests. At Zen Center of Los Angeles we have adapted this tradition to meet our modern needs. Kaizen is well prepared to take on this demanding and fulfilling position, having already been in leadership roles as a long-term practitioner and resident. Please give him your full support as he devotes his year to supporting your practice.”

Head Trainee Russell Rinkai Rayburn

Rinkai will enter as the San Luis Obispo Zen Circle’s second Head Trainee on Thursday, September 30. Rinkai is SLOZC’s longest-practicing member sitting with us for the last fourteen years and serves as the President of the Board of Directors. Rinkai is a retired schoolteacher having taught for 32 years. As a 4^th degree black belt in Aikido, he continues to teach this martial art at the Aikido Central Coast dojo. He has been married to his wife Caroline for 39 years.  They have two grown children and two grandchildren  May his time as Head Trainee go well and may it serve to deepen both his own practice and our collective practice.

EXITING SHUSO AND HEAD TRAINEES