With heavy hearts and teary eyes, our sangha remembers and honors today a dear friend and a dedicated priest, rev. Kōjitsu Brett Williams, who passed away on the 5th of October, 2025.

Kōjitsu, or Koji, as we lovingly called him, was a kind, loving and gentle presence in our sangha. After many years of practicing buddhism in different sanghas, unable to pursue Jukai or Shukke Tokudo in more traditional places, due to his many health issues, despite his wish to do so, Brett found his way to Treeleaf and our Monastery of Open Doors. Here, he found a home and a place that not only accepted him, but embraced all of his conditions, just as they were, and supported him in making his goals a reality. Kōjitsu ordained as un unsui on may 25th, 2025 and he immediately began both his training and service in this sangha.

Our friend Koji was an example of resilience, endurance and dedication to the practice of the dharma. He was always ready to give the best example of what Treeleaf’s spirit truly is: to practice just as we are, in the stormy seas of our lives, without holding back, without seeking ideal conditions or pushing away the hurt, the pain and the ailing body. Kōjitsu was, above anything else, present. He was present in his pain and physical struggles, he was present in his fear and in his joy.

Not too long ago, in this lovely essay he wrote, Koji spoke of what it felt like to live in his body, as a Zen practitioner. He said “Living with dialysis, heart disease, and pulmonary embolism is not easy. But it is not in conflict with the Buddha Way. In fact, it may offer the rarest gift of all, the chance to live every moment with full awareness of its fragility. Zen does not promise that we will live longer. It offers something far more profound… that we might live fully, and die fully, without clinging, without regret, and with an open, awakened heart.“

Kōjitsu’s practice was just like that: full, visible and unhindered. He sat when he could sit, he reclined when he needed to, he moaned and showed his pain in his face, he chanted both when he could see and when he couldn’t, he fidgeted and remained still, but he never held back.

Kōjitsu did his best to truly live for the benefit of all beings – he helped with fund raisers, assisted the needy, supported those who needed him, always had a kind and encouraging word for those around him and when asked, he stepped up and served as our shuso for the first month of Ango.

He loved his family passionately, with a love that was nourishing and steady. He always spoke of himself as being the luckiest guy in the world for having Vi, his wife, adored his son Jett, and he lived expressing those feelings, and relishing in their company and love.

We are zen people, and thus we sometimes put down the belief in time, in birth and death. We open our eyes to the bigger picture of the Oneness that is everything, a flowing that’s always going and that holds everything. So, we don’t mourn our friend, we don’t think we’ve lost our friend. We honor and celebrate the beautiful dance he’s danced with grace and gentleness, and our dancing along with him for the time we had together. He’s just stepped out of the spotlight.

For our dear friend, Treeleaf’s rev. Kokuu has written a poem:

even as leaves fall
the moon shines clear
through birth and death
yet in this turning moment
we light incense
and remember a true friend of the way