 From our directors Building Our Future: Updates from Sanshin Zen Community Michael Komyo Melfi, President, and Laura Miller, Vice President As stewards of Sanshin Zen Community, the board of directors endeavors to continually envision and enact strategies that uphold our shared mission and vision. Over the past year, amidst the challenges and opportunities that have arisen, we have dedicated ourselves to the development of a long range plan that charts our course for the next fifteen years. This comprehensive plan, meticulously crafted during the final quarter of 2023 and officially passed in January 2024, encompasses a spectrum of initiatives aimed at realizing our practice vision. From housing and support plans to staffing strategies, renovation endeavors to residential practice frameworks, building initiatives to succession planning, every facet of our community's growth and sustainability has been considered. In the subsequent months, we have diligently worked towards operationalizing the initial steps of this transformative plan. In this vein, we are excited to share that the board is moving forward on some important items to implement two key priorities - restarting residential practice while continuing to support housing for the Okumuras. Residential practice is an integral part of Sanshin’s strategic plan and Okumura Roshi’s vision for the future of our community, but our property requires some work before we can support residents. To create space for this work and support the continued realization of our community's mission and vision, we are working with the Okumuras to find alternative housing with the goal of them moving into a new residence of their choosing by the end of 2024, so that we will be free to renovate our existing building for residential practice. With this move, Sanshin will continue providing housing support to the Okumuras in the form of a housing allowance. We are excited to see this work move forward, and ask for your support to make it happen. Please give here to support the Okumuras' move and the development of residential practice. Thank you!
 Other newsA wedding at Sanshinji: On April 17th, Doju Layton and Alli Gillett were married at Sanshinji. The ceremony was officiated by Hoko, with Sawyer serving as ino. Family members of Doju and Alli were also in attendance for the happy occasion. Doju is an ordained student of Okumura Roshi, and Alli will be receiving lay precepts from Hoko this July.
 Practice recap
Virtual dharma study intensive: From May 2nd to May 11th, about seventy practitioners participated from throughout the U. S. and beyond via Zoom in a 10-day dharma study intensive with Okumura Roshi, focused on Menzan Zuiho's important text, Jijuyu Zanmai. The schedule consisted simply of a lecture and Q & A with Okumura Roshi each morning, which practitioners folded into their own schedules of zazen and day to day responsibilities and practice from home. A small support crew was present in-person to facilitate technical and zendo needs. This event is the successor to the genzo-e retreats of the past twenty years, and is held online twice a year - the next one will be carried out in November. 
Throughout the month, practitioners also gathered a few times at the sesshin vegetable garden up the road from the temple to construct a bamboo trellis for the peas, thin radish, carrot, and lettuce seedlings, hill the potatoes, plant cucumbers and tomatoes, and spread Sanshin lawn grass clippings as a mulch and a good nitrogen source. A few crops should be ready for harvest in time for June sesshin!
 Coming up
Virtual and in-person participation is welcome; no registration required. We'll sit zazen at 6:30 pm EDT, and discussion will follow from 7 to 8. For a complete schedule of the year's discussion evenings and more, visit our lineage & legacy webpage.
Ryaku fusatsu in June: Ryaku fusatsu is our monthly ceremony of renewing our aspiration to practice with the sixteen bodhisattva precepts. Our next one happens Monday, June 17th, at 7 pm EDT and the ceremony typically lasts about an hour. Hosshin Shoaf will officiate. All are welcome, in-person and virtually, whether or not you've formally received precepts.  American religious landscapeReligion and feelings of closeness: Religiously unaffiliated Americans are far less likely than their affiliated counterparts to feel close to others in the U.S. (51% vs. 73%), according to a new Pew Research Center analysis. This pattern is mirrored in other measures of religiosity. For example, Americans who say religion is not too or not at all important to them, or who never attend religious services, are generally less likely to feel close to other Americans. Religiously unaffiliated Americans are also much less likely than those who are religiously affiliated to feel connected to others in their local community (43% vs. 60%). This pattern aligns with previous research on interpersonal connectedness and philanthropy among religious people. Religious people tend to be more likely than nonreligious people to volunteer and give to charity – though they prefer that these activities benefit others within their own religious groups. READ MORE  Sanshin Network Regular updates from Okumura Roshi's Japanese ordained students: Jikei Kido, Issan Koyama, Jisho Takahashi, and Esho Morimoto have begun to offer regular updates on their teachings and practice lives, on a shared "Linktree" webpage, here. (Their site will also be linked from our Sanshin Network page). The project is an evolving continuation of the regular updates previously offered by Okumura Roshi himself for friends and practitioners in Japan during his time as Sanshinji's abbot. This group's upcoming posts may be of particular interest for practitioners in Japan, Japanese-speaking practitioners living elsewhere, or anyone who is interested in the practice perspectives of these Japanese and Japanese-American practitioners with significant experience of Soto Zen in the United States, in large part through Okumura Roshi's teaching and practice at Sanshinji, and who are now living and practicing throughout the United States and in Japan. Some content is in Japanese and some is in English. Currently, new material is posted about once a month, and they hope to increase this over time. Jukai-e in Belgium: Four people received the precepts from Mokusho Depreay at Daishinji in Mons, Belgium: Serge Etsudō, Lauriane Dōshin, Nathalie Jikidō and Sandra Shijun, in the presence of the sangha, friends and family. All of them had spent the last few months sewing their rakusus at the temple.
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September 2024
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