Just us

This week has largely been taken up with preparations for Saturday's Shukke Tokudo with Lucy Xiao, who will become my dharma sister. There have been other things happening too, of course, like getting back into the schedule after a week of interim, which always has a certain feeling of refreshed reconnection. Also there has been a steady stream of people coming up from the Tassajara Practice Period, which gives us an opportunity to catch up on news and see how people are doing.
Ceremonies and rituals are a central part of our practice here at Zen Center, and since my job is to organise them, I have a very particular perspective on them right now. I know, having heard it from any number of people, that they can be an obstacle for some, something that can be off-putting, or look too esoteric, particularly if you are new, or you are mainly interested in just sitting.
I remember at Tassajara, at the end of my first summer, on the first evening of the Practice Period, suddenly everyone who was there showed up for the evening service wearing their robes, as is the form for Practice Period. I was amazed at the difference in mood, and I was thinking "but it's just us". It was the same people I had been seeing working and larking around for many months, now looking very formal and serious. I sometimes think the same thing now, in the middle of a ceremony, for instance doing a food offering to Suzuki Roshi, or to Bodhidharma or Mahapajapati. Everything is very formal and solemn, and yet, as I pass the tray to the Abbot or the Tanto, it is also "just us", and this is just what we do. Tomorrow, Lucy will have her head shaved and put on new robes and become a home-leaving 'child of Buddha', but she will still be Lucy, and I'm sure her wonderful laugh will ring out just as often.