More Instructions for Jukai (Saturday, November 28)

Here are a few additional details that may help you get the most out of tomorrow’s ceremony. This is the Center’s most popular and, arguably, most inspiring ceremony. We hope you can attend!

  1. After teisho (~10:30 EST), the zendo will remain open if you want to get in some extra sitting before the ceremony.
  2. At 11:30, the keisu will begin tolling, signifying that we’re about to begin. Please face your device, seated, for the entire ceremony.
  3. We’ll begin with the Prajna Paramita (p.11) and the Ten-verse Kannon Sutra (Kannon Gyo, p. 13). You can find them in the Center’s chant book here.
  4. We’ll also be reciting the Repentance Gatha. Here it is if you don’t know it:

All harmful actions committed by me since time immemorial,
stemming from greed, anger, and delusion,
arising from body, speech, and mind,
I now repent having committed.

The Sight of One Hand

Our first online Ceremony of Gratitude, last Sunday, revealed a significant problem that never could have occurred when the ceremony was held in the Arnold Park zendo, where people were always invited to voice their statements of gratitude in random order, as they wished. After this year’s ceremony, more than a few participants reported that they were not called on to make their oral statements of gratitude.

Without geeking out too much, here’s what happened: Dozens of participants were spread across multiple Zoom gallery-view pages. This, combined with a quirk that causes the “Hollywood squares” to randomly move around, led us to rely on the virtual hand-raise feature to manage the order of statements. While we had shared some “how to” tips and resources by email the day before the Ceremony, it turned out that the hand-raise icon isn’t easily accessible on some devices. Unfortunately, the folks who resorted to raising their hand the old-fashioned way were not visible to the host (Donna Kowal) while she was tracking the virtual hand raises. As we continue to learn how to adapt the Center’s traditions to a virtual environment, we look forward to the day when we can once again gather together in the zendo. Let’s hope this was our last online-only Ceremony of Gratitude!