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Deep gratitude to Eric Dietzel who designed this wonderful temple seal design for us! You can order it on stickers or a t-shirt from a website called Printful.com if you download the full resolution art below and create an account with them. There are printed stickers available in Cloud Hall.
Full Resolution Download
Tim and Raizelah will be visiting their Kenyan daughter and her family later this month. Mercy requests, "If any of you happens to have an old phone or laptop that you’re no longer using, I’d really appreciate it if you could bring it for me. I’ll definitely make good use of it." Reach out to Nomon at tim@redcedarzen.org or 360-223-0687 if you have some gear to spare.
The Hidden Mountain Zendo yurt is available for a new renter. Just north of Bellingham, 20 minutes from town. It is a 24' yurt with a separate attached bathroom, in a private setting, tucked up by the woods at the edge of a meadow. It is very private and quiet, and the most recent occupant was a Theravada nun. Wood stove, wood plank floors, full kitchen and a couple furnishings are there, so it doesn't take much to complete the space. Some storage space is available. Rent of $775/mo. includes electricity, water, garbage, and recycling. Firewood and propane are the renter's responsibility. Month-to-month terms, $200 cleaning deposit, and no "last month's" rent. The space is great for one person, although a couple could do well there too. Call Bob at (360) 927-5702.
Sansui-ji Temple will be closed on the following dates due to retreats and the holidays.
Sunday November 8th - we'll be at the Shuso's Dharma Inquiry Ceremony & Potluck Lunch - come join us at Samish Island Retreat Center or online
Wednesday November 25th & Sunday November 29th - for Thanksgiving.
Sunday December 6th - we'll be completing Rohatsu: Buddha's Enlightenment sesshin.
Sunday December 27th, Wednesday December 30th & Sunday January 3rd - Winter break. Note that Weekday Morning Sit continues and we will hold our New Year's Eve ceremony.
I've been so moved by Juriki Samuel, our Shuso's, deep devotion, commitment, and vulnerability in sharing his class on the Dharma of 12-Step Recovery. As we approach the closing 3-day retreat on Samish Island and the conclusion of our 2026 Fall Practice period with the final Shuso's Dharma Inquiry Ceremony on Sunday morning, I'm reflecting on what I've learned and the openings I see to new learning.
One of the teachings of Buddhism that can be hard to get our minds around is the teaching on "disenchantment." This is the insight that no matter how well we arrange our lives in the relative world of our identities, plans, and theories we'll always be unsatisfied. Disenchantment is a teaching on addiction is what I'm seeing now. The tweaks and improvements and acquisitions we work towards are the shiny objects we're hooked on. And no matter how many of these we get ahold of it will never be enough.
There is deep wisdom to this. It's obvious enough in middle & upper class materialism for instance. I admit to reading some reviews of Apple's new super-duper folding cell phone that opens up to become an iPad but fits in your pocket. For a mere $2,000! I felt a little surge of excitement - how cool is that? Sure, my next thought is "I do not need this and can't afford it anyway" but that spark of addictive excitement is there. We know that's not the path to lasting happiness!
Japanese painting of a gaki (hungry ghost) being tormented! A bit dramatic, but don't we all have elements of the hungry ghosts in us? Here's a short talk I gave about the Hungry Ghosts Ceremony.
But disenchantment points to much more subtle grasping and clinging. We also know how we can become like hungry ghosts obsessively searching for the perfect partner, the ideal place to live, a career that's ideally suited to our needs and is deeply meaningful and on and on. This kind of seeking can be an infinite loop of striving and dissappointment.
Disenchantment is a real thing and it's worth studying. To learn to not get too excited or too convinced when the mind gets lost in excitement or in lack. To feel how there is a deeper refuge in the practice. How gradually over time as we study, meditate, learn from our teachers and with our sangha peers the bright and shiny hold of the relative world dims a little. And to encourage us we may feel deep moments of surprising peace and okay-ness too even in the middle of the usual chaos (and then have to watch out that we not make those into new shiny object to grab onto!).
And yet people do have real needs at the same time. We need food, shelter, a reasonable degree of safety. We need connection, support and love. We need ways of healing and growing through the traumas and unmet needs of the powerful karmic past.
And still it's a great idea to improve your relative life as best you can! Of course we should pick our jobs and homes and partners wisely. To the extent that we have a choice anyway. Of course we should get organized and get it together and live as well as we can. It's all in the spirit we go about this it seems. A healthy attempt to make things better or endless striving for perfection? Can we accept things as they are at every stop along the way?
Sometimes these early teachings sound like if you just wander off into the woods and meditate hard enough you'll drift off into the bliss of nirvana and peace. I've read of people who tried to do that where it didn't end well. I've also met people who dived into practice with incredible intensity and came out the other end kind of shiny and above it all but also somehow off - righteous and self-centered about their spiritual attainments.
And so I'm musing about how our practice journey needs to include both the path of healing and the path of transformation. Healing: we do need to heal, we need support, we need to be seen, we have needs! Transformation: and yet we also need to see that wounds aren't as real as we think they are, and that the deepest hurt is in the mistaken belief that we are separate broken beings who need fixing. Gradually it all comes together in our hearts that the paths of healing and transformation converge in the end. That not being so enchanted by our small self and it's endless need for reassurance is also key to true healing.
I also mused recently about the 12 Steps themselves in this talk.
Please do join us for the Shuso's Dharma Inquiry Ceremony on Sunday - everyone who touched in during Practice Period is very welcome. You can come down to Skagit Valley and see the place we do our residential practice or you can Zoom in. It's an important moment for Juriki Samuel and the whole sangha as we complete the process of birthing a new Practice Leader!
With love and a deep bow, Nomon Tim
Blossoms on a Withered Tree
Kevin Costa, Bellingham, WA
For nearly thirty years I worked as a speech-language pathologist in public schools, much of that time in classrooms serving students with moderate to severe disabilities. Many of these children were described in deficit language: delayed, limited, impaired.
The tree looked withered.
We created structure: predictable routines, shared attention, turn-taking. Language slowed. Teachers, assistants, and students formed a communication community where every attempt had a place. Then something small would happen.
A sound became a word. A gesture became a request. A student completed a line in a story. Laughter moved through the room.
Blossoms.
Years later, listening to a Zen teacher, I recognized the phrase immediately. I had been experiencing it every Friday morning in Special Day Classrooms.
Structure becomes the tree. Attention becomes the soil. Expression blooms.
stone circle
the growing echo
of a word
~Originally published in Frogpond 49.2, Spring/Summer 2026, p. 113.
The following is a short interview with our new Shuso, Juriki Samuel Senerchia and his moving, personal offering to us all.
Deep bows, Ikushun Desiree
Juriki: As most of you know, I'm here with everyone temporarily before returning to California in a couple of months. I feel very grateful right now to just be in person--with the sangha, experiencing the many exchanges whether it's with Nomon, or the sewing group, or the Doan Ryo, or our community at the Wednesday or Sunday programs--I'm really soaking up all of the beauty--and all of the encounters with everyone.
Desiree: How did you come to land on the subject of your class offering--"Embodied Zen and 12 Step Practice?"
Juriki: This is what I am studying right now — this is what I'm in the middle of and, I'm very excited about — so, it was kind of a no-brainer to want to share it. I am really bringing to all of you my own personal experience.
Desiree: Were you surprised when Nomon came to you with this request to be our 2026 Shuso?
Juriki: Well, it was kind of out of the blue — but at the same time, we've been working together and talking a lot as I am sewing and preparing for my priest journey. Last year, I was at Green Gulch Zen Center, and that was a deepening of my practice —and, although I had done many practice periods before, they are all deepening, more and more. I spent some time at Tassajara also and remained in touch with Nomon throughout all. I felt very "accompanied" by Nomon throughout these practice periods. Although I have long wanted to take this priest's path, Nomon has recently given me permission to do so formally. This of course is a bit slow going, as a single parent, but that is ok — my primary practice is with my son — who happens to have turned 16 today! As he becomes more independent, it allows me more and more space to turn towards my role as Shuso and my sewing/priest's journey and make my Zen practice more central in my life.
Having just come out of our first class today, I have to say that our first class felt so rich; I love the form of everybody having a chance to share; it becomes a process and not so intellectual, from one source, but it's more of a coming from our own heart/minds.
Desiree: I realized today, in our class how "anonymity" is different than "keeping things confidential" — our usual reminder in our small group discussions and/or our break-out rooms on zoom. This difference in approach is a very important distinction isn't it?--it gives more freedom by releasing self identity?
Juriki: Yes. I think anonymity is a practice really. It's kind of like generosity; it's a paramita. It's all about attachment to self and moving into the place where I can be anonymous in this moment--to show up "free." That's what the freedom of the Dharma is pointing us to: I don't have to be a slave to "all my ancient twisted karma" that has happened and is created by myriad conditions that are way beyond my control — but in THIS moment, I'm free to respond forward. Not that I'm going to make everything be the way that I want, but that perspective — that attitude can shift. It is all causal conditions. A friend said, long ago, it is nothing other than causal conditions. I was hoping to point towards this today in class: We really aren't the "arbitrator" of the universe. The universe is the arbitrator of us. It's what Dogen says when he says, "it's not the self that goes out to meet the world — the whole world is coming to the self and actualizing the self." That's what no self is. It isn't this fixed thing, this me, this me that has these problems, or this me that did this great thing, or... So, what you were noting [Desiree] about "keeping things confidential" — it's not about that. There is no fixed self. That's what anonymity is. And, also, you're not the mistakes you made--you're more than that...you're not the wealth that you made...you're more than that...even the way that you were a hero for somebody once--it's more than that, too. You're beyond that.
Desiree: yes--the more that I feel the need to keep up my defenses because I feel misunderstood, or my way is right...there's no freedom in that...
Juriki: Our addiction to self is an ongoing practice. And to realize that there is no unchanging self that exists, that is where hope is restored. There's a hope that I'll get my way and that is not what we're talking about. There's another kind of hope that comes with the realization that I'm free because I have no fixed identity. A hope connected to trust, and an ability to give something the time that it needs — and that is acceptance. Acceptance is allowing that time/space needed — and we don't know how much that is--but we are just willing to give it--and that is generosity.
Desiree: Juriki--Thank you so much for this wonderful taste of our explorations to come as we delve into our classes and time together. This has been a great jumping off place and look forward to our continued practice!
Note: Also, if you've signed up for this practice period with the Shuso, and have not yet signed up for tea, please take this opportunity to do so [here]
Volunteer Corner--
Join our Garden Party! Saturday, September 19th!
Please come join us in caring for the Sansui-ji temple garden and grounds, which were designed by our friend and sangha member Robin Kucklick. For this work party we will be focusing on weeding the plant beds and walkways, trimming brambles, edging and mowing the grass and watering. There are some gloves and tools available at the temple, but if you are able to easily bring gloves, weeding tools, loppers, etc., to share for the light garden work it would be appreciated. For those less inclined to work outside there will be opportunities for indoor temple cleaning as well. We look forward to sharing this work practice opportunity with you.
More information and registration.
Sangha to Sangha News
Remembering Judy Daylen
Judy Daylen, our dharma friend and guiding teacher of Salt Spring Zen Circle, died on August 17. She was a strong, dedicated practitioner who came to zen in the early 2000’s, and whose many talents were a gift to those around her.
Those who knew her knew and experienced her kindness, warmth, clarity, dedication, generosity, and sweet-spirited way. Her dharma name is Choko Kangen, Morning Light, Generous Source.
Judy said, "I'm ready", and it was clear that she was. She gave everything she had to conscious dying with love at the core, often reflecting on how essential her Zen practice was in the process of accepting and letting go, so her passing will help remind us of these twin processes as we, too, go forward.
Judy did not, as Dylan Thomas wrote, "rage against the dying of the light", she loved, and loved deeply, and joined that light even as her life force diminished. Her clarity throughout, and her ability to sincerely say yes to death just as she did, was both a comfort and inspiration. We will miss her.
~Submitted by Seiu Hannah Sullivan
SEPTEMBER IS MEMBERSHIP MONTH AT RED CEDAR ZEN COMMUNITY.
We invite you to choose a membership donation that reflects your heart.
We are grateful for the support from our members. This support keeps the temple doors open, and allows Red Cedar to offer Dharma seminars, classes and retreats for no or low fees.
Monthly donations range from $10 - $150 per month (annual options also available).
Sign up at www.redcedarzen.org/membership or contact membership@redcedarzen.org.
We value the practice of generosity in all forms at Red Cedar.
Thank you for your support.
Red Cedar Zen Community is a 501(c) non-profit organization.
