Question for attendees of Ryaka Fusatsu ceremonies

[Kokuu]

Hi all!

Sekishi and I are working on the ceremony so as to make it more like a normal Treeleaf Zazenkai/ceremony and therefore both familiar and in line with the rest of what we do here. This will mostly involve reciting the Heart Sutra at the beginning but we also thought of adding the recitation of lineage ancestors.

The reason for this is twofold:

1. We only do this otherwise at Rohatsu

2. It seems appropriate to think of all of our lineage ancestors during this monthly recommitment to our practice.


However, adding the Heart Sutra and lineage recitations is going to increase the time of the ceremony by around 15-20 minutes. Would everyone be okay with that or should we keep it shorter? On the plus side, including the ancestor recitations gives us a deeper connection to those who have practiced before us and kept the torch of practice burning, but also we don't want to lost people because it is too much time out of their day, with the ceremony happening at 9am West Coast time, 12pm East Coast and 5pm/6pm/7pm in Europe/South Africa.

If you could let us know, that would be a very lovely thing.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Bion]

Hi all!

Sekishi and I are working on the ceremony so as to make it more like a normal Treeleaf Zazenkai/ceremony and therefore both familiar and in line with the rest of what we do here. This will mostly involve reciting the Heart Sutra at the beginning but we also thought of adding the recitation of lineage ancestors.

The reason for this is twofold:

1. We only do this otherwise at Rohatsu

2. It seems appropriate to think of all of our lineage ancestors during this monthly recommitment to our practice.


However, adding the Heart Sutra and lineage recitations is going to increase the time of the ceremony by around 15-20 minutes. Would everyone be okay with that or should we keep it shorter? On the plus side, including the ancestor recitations gives us a deeper connection to those who have practiced before us and kept the torch of practice burning, but also we don't want to lost people because it is too much time out of their day, with the ceremony happening at 9am West Coast time, 12pm East Coast and 5pm/6pm/7pm in Europe/South Africa.

If you could let us know, that would be a very lovely thing.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

I think the ceremony is great as it is, and does not require more bells and whistles. The duration is more than acceptable and makes it easy for most of us to attend and not stress about having to make time for it.

SatToday

[Naiko]

I do not have a preference. I like the ceremony as is, but your additions sound really lovely too. The length of the ceremony doesn’t hinder me, the day of the week is more of a factor. One of my colleagues routinely schedules noon time meetings (I do have a preference about those, grrr. ).
Gassho,
Naiko,
st

[Tairin]

I have only participated 50% of the time but my thought is that the ceremony is good the way it is and at it’s current length.


Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Meian]

I participated once live and once recorded. I'm having great difficulty with longer sessions of any kind lately. I'm trying to work on this, but I would prefer Ryaku at its current length. I appreciate the intent, however.

Gassho, meian st

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[Heiso]

I've also only participated once and while it's a lovely idea think that extending things might be pushing it a bit for me.

Gassho,

Heiso

StLah