Nenju

Each week at the end of the Saturday lecture during practice period, I try to entice people to come to nenju, and yet I find it a little difficult to describe. It marks the end of the practice week, for sure, and it is all about gratitude, as I have heard from a number of people. Last Saturday as I was casting around for words, Tova offered 'connection' as well, which was nice.
At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, my experience of this ceremony at Tassajara is much stronger than my experience of it here. At Tassajara, nenju comes at the end of the afternoon on three-and-eight days. For those unfamiliar with the traditional monastic schedule (confession - this is a word I pronounce like an American), Tassajara works largely on a four-and-one schedule, that is four days on, one day 'off' - it is usually called a personal day, rather than a day off, as you still have to get up in the morning and follow a limited schedule - and traditionally the personal days fall on the days of the month ending in four and nine, thus they are often called four-and-nine days. With me so far? So nenju comes near the end of the day before to mark the closing of the practice 'week'.
If you ask Tassajara monks about nenju, they will usually mention the waiting. There is a lot of standing on the engawa - the walkway around the zendo - while the Abbot does a procession to various altars, and then there are a few other steps before everyone goes inside for a jundo. It is usually cold outside at that time of the afternoon at Tassajara, sometimes very cold, which tends to colour people's perceptions of the ceremony.
At City Center there is less endurance involved; the Abbot just goes to the Buddha Hall to bow before coming to the dining room, where everyone is lined up in a large horseshoe formation.
 One of the highlights of nenju for me is getting to be the the kokyo, as the eko is one of the most fun things you get to do. There are actually two that are used at Tassajara, but here we just use the longer one, which goes thus:

Carefully listen everyone.

24 hundred 96 years ago the Great Tathagata entered nirvana.

When this day is gone, your life also decreases.

Like a fish in a puddle, what pleasure is there here?

We are to practice constantly, as if to save our head from fire.

Mindful of transiency, pursue the path with diligence and care.

Throughout Hosshinji the Dharma safely resides,

        bringing all peace.

Everyone in ten directions knows an increase in joy

and growth in wisdom.

Thankfully we recite the names of Buddha.


So last Saturday, I offered myself the opportunity to be kokyo, as this was the first nenju of the new practice period, and I wanted to set the tone as best I could. I was doing it from memory as I like to do, and I thought I was doing pretty well until I realised that I had said Zenshinji instead of Hosshinji, somewhat automatically, as I have done this more times there than here, even though I had been telling myself 'Hosshinji' as I went along towards that line. And then, even after what I wrote last time, just dwelling on that mistake for a moment meant that I didn't continue from 'safely resides' into 'bringing all peace', where the pitch is dropped, but paused, forgetting what I was supposed to do for the briefest moment. It is possible that many of the people there did not notice, and I did not beat myself up about it.
So we recited the names of Buddha, and did our jundo, where everyone goes around the group, bowing to and being bowed to by everyone, and then, after a whispered exchange with the Abbot (which is a secret of course), I announced 'Ho-san', which translates as 'no more dokusan', in other words, the weekend starts here. Paul offered us some encouraging words to keep in mind during the weekend so that we are not too tempted to think of it as 'time off'. Because after all, how can you take time off from practice?