We are blessed with two upcoming Red Cedar Zen Dharma Classes.

Our annual Precepts Class is this year led by Practice Leaders Seiu Hannah Sullivand and Joden Bob Rose starts on Weds March 29th. It's an 8 month process with monthly class meetings giving plenty of time to reflect and study how the Zen Precepts can inform the way you live you life. This course is also pre-requestite for receiving the precepts formally in the jukai ceremony.

And a new arrival is Nomon Tim will be offering a Monday evening Dharma Class on the Lotus Sutra starting on Mon April 3rd. A neat opportunity to take a deep dive into a revered (and pretty far out!) traditional text.

Red Cedar Zen Community's Wilderness Dharma Program begins another year of mindful and ritual journeys throughout our local watersheds, and we warmly invite you to come out for a walk, a hike, or a full backpack.

We offer a wide variety of experiences, suitable for a wide range of interests and abilities. Our walks and hikes are arranged into two broad groups - our "Following the Way of Water" series of journeys up into the high country of our local world, and our "Opening to Nature" series of explorations into the diversity of lowland environs which surrounds us right here at home.

We begin the season with our Receiving Water/HIlls and Streams Hike on Saturday, March 25th, timed to coincide closely with the Spring Equinox. Each year we receive a vial of Salish Sea water, and carry it with us throughout our hikes, exchanging it with fresh mountain water at the highest points we can reach of the three branches of the Nooksack River, and returning that mountain water to the Salish Sea at season's end.

This poignant ceremony on the beach can be attended separately, or together with, the hike led by Hegaku Talus Latona, which immediately follows. On that "HIlls and Streams" hike we will recite the entirety of the Genjo Koan by Eihei Dogen. Please consider joining this shoreside ritual, and the hike if you choose, and put your energy and well-wishes into the vial of water we will be walking with throughout the season.

We will follow this with our next hike, the popular Circumambulation of Mt. Eire on April 9th, which coincides closely with Buddha's birthday. Led by Jodan Bob Rose, the hike ritually circles the small seaside mountain, protected years ago partly through the efforts of Jodan Bob himself. Our first ceremony on the hike visits the "Poet's Tree", and each participant is asked to bring a short piece of writing to welcome the spring.

You can see the full list of this season's programs here. Be sure to take note of a new program, the Cedarwood Pilgrimage on August 17th, which weaves our new building into the ritual matrix of walks we annually perform, and gives an opportunity for community members to send off our team of hikers to the high country for our Mountains and Rivers Backpack.

Yours in nature,

Reizan Bob Penny and the Wilderness Dharma Program team

Hi dear Sangha,

I just put a page together clarifying how the private interviews with a teacher in Zen work. Hope you find it helpful: Private Interview with the Teachers.

- Nomon Tim

Ryushin Andrea joined us at Zen Alive to offer a talk on Buddha Taught Nirvana. Have a listen!

Sesshin is a wonderful opportunity to deepen into Zen mediation in community. The Practice Period Closing Sesshin is open to everyone regardless of your participation in this year's Winter Practice Period. Thursday evening March 9th through Saturday afternoon March 11th at our Zendo in the Bellingham Unitarian Church. Available also on zoom. Talks and interviews with Nomon Tim Burnett and Ryushin Andrea Thach. And a Dharma talk by Ikushun Desiree Webster. Vegetarian meals provided.

Our annual Introduction to Zen Meditation class is a wonderful introduction, overview, and deepening into how Zen practice "works". Taught this year by Shuko Edie Norton and Raizelah Bayen. Sundays at 4pm in March. Don't miss this wonderful opportunity!

This Sunday, February 19th, our guest speaker for the Sunday 10am Zen Alive! program is Practice Period visiting teacher Ryushin Andrea Thach.

And next Sunday, Feburary 26th, our guiding teacher Nomon Tim Burnett joins us for Zen Alive!

Please consider coming to one or both of these Sunday programs during Practice Period where we'll hear from our teachers.

More on Zen Alive...

We all found Jonathan Prescott's Dharma talk On Effort and Ease very clear and helpful in thinking about how to practice meditation and in life in general. Enjoy!

Dear Sangha,

I'd love your help putting our annual donor's letter and calligraphy thank you card. We're hosting a mailing party to stuff envelopes this Sunday January 29th at 1pm at our new building at 2509 Cedarwood. (It's not a zendo yet but it is an office building so let's use it for office work and enjoy being in our new space!). Depending on how many hands we have it'll take about an hour.

Warmly,

Nomon Tim

We received this from the Northwest Dharma Association:

Memorial for Genko Kathy Blackman 

January 28 from 2:00-3:30 pm

Puget Sound Zen Center - Vashon Island WA

It is with sadness that we announce the passing of Genko Kathy Blackman on December 9, 2022. We will hold a memorial for Genko on January 28 at the Puget Sound Zen Center. It will streamed on Zoom, with the Zoom address on our homepage and the same password as we usually use.  If you need that password, email PSZC.

There will be a second memorial at Nalandabodhi in Seattle at a later date.

Genko Kathy Blackman taught regularly at the Puget Sound Zen Center from 2012 to 2022. Genko trained in the Rinzai Zen tradition and was ordained in 1997 and authorized to teach in 2007. She also practiced with Sharon Salzberg in the Insight Meditation tradition and at Nalandabodhi in Seattle with Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, a Kagyu and Nyingma Tibetan lineage holder.