Letting Go

Following the sacred thread, drawn on by the sacred thread

In a well that has not been dug, water from no source is rippling.
Someone with no shadow or form is drawing that water.

Miscellaneous koan collection in the Harada Yasutani tradition

My calendar reminds me that it was on this day, the 5th of July, in 1969, I received shukke tokudo, also called unsui tokudo, ordination as a novice Soto Zen Buddhist priest in Oakland, California, from the Soto Zen priest Houn Jiyu Kennett.

I was twelve days from turning 21. Today marks 57 years from the event. And in twelve days, I will turn 78. I’ve already starting thinking of myself as “nearly 80.”

Time does fly.

The English word “ordain” comes from Latin by way of French and means “put in order, arrange, dispose, appoint.” Ordination is the formal rite dedicating someone to sacred work. Some form of ordination is common across cultures, although the definition of sacred work shifts with those various cultures.

In Zen in the Japanese tradition in which I was first ordained, this had to do with entering into formation within an approximation of the monastic life. Japanese Buddhism had added in its own twists to the received tradition. And so while bound by rule, my ordination was not to what is generally considered monastic in the West, or among Buddhists generally beyond Japan and a pocket in Korea. Celibacy was not expected, the biggest divergence. Growing hair and eating meat were other monastic rules set aside in the Japanese model

But a commitment to monastic formation was strong.

Formation is another term of art. It consists of embracing disciplines and study that shapes a person’s life. In matters spiritual it has to do with prayer or meditation and, certainly in the Zen traditions, retreat. If one counts by days, years of retreat, whether one or three or five or seven or 90 or 100 days in formal blocks. I once did a rough count and I think as far as formal Zen retreat is concerned I have something around five years under my belt.

And even for the most obstinate, like me, that tends to have consequences.

And in time there was a kind of letting go for me.

I felt a lack in my Zen training. I too quickly was given titles, and too slowly growing into what they meant. And so I left the monastery I was training in, and moved on. Critically, however, I never lost something in that ordination, in that setting a commitment to sacred work.

But leaving, letting go, was also part of it.

Later I would also ordain as a Unitarian Universalist minister. I also had its formation. In this case a three year graduate school and a bunch of internships. Something else that has consequences.

Along the way I had other brushes with forms of ordained life. Briefly between Zen and Unitarian Universalism I was an independent Sacramental priest, and for about five minutes a bishop.

Here the leaving the letting go felt truer than leaving the Zen monastery. But it also left tendrils wrapping around my heart.

And letting go was somehow part of that heart thing, as well.

But the big things were and continue to be Zen and only to a bit lesser degree Unitarianism, at least in my imaginal life a thread of rational Christianity.

Living into and letting go of.

I guess my ministry was some form of universalism, a bit of a mess, but the shape of my life.

More letting go. Here of my ideas of what should be.

I’m now a couple of years past drawing any kind of regular paid work in UU world. And I’m trying hard to extricate myself from official positions in Zen world.

To cite popular literature I got my sock and I feel kind of free.

Another kind of letting go.

So, what now? What next?

I’m still committed to the sacred work. It looks like I’ve been given an opportunity to reflect and to write. Since my official retirement I’ve been able to publish two books, one with Shambhala and another with Monkfish. Another, a novel, is currently in the hands of the editors at Monkfish. And the final first draft of an appreciation of Christian mysticism from a Zen Buddhist perspective is due in the hands of its editors (also at Monkfish) sometime in August.

I barely maintain a blog hosted by Patheos. And I’m enthusiastically involved here at Substack with my Unanswered Questions newsletter.

So, I’m keeping off the streets if not entirely out of trouble.

I’m grateful for this time of reflection and writing. And, honestly, a little surprised at how fruitful this moment is.

I think of it as continuing the thread that is my vow of sacred work.

And I see in it its own seeds of letting go. Always, I’ve found, following this thread leads to letting go.

If I live long enough there’s little doubt in my heart it will find another shift. Maybe two. Who knows?

And somewhere it is a letting go into the ultimate silence. The truer mystery.

What this all reminds me of is a koan.

In a well that has not been dug, water from no source is rippling.
Someone with no shadow or form is drawing that water.

I “passed” this koan many, many years ago.

Today, I’m beginning to feel it as truer than true. A gift from the dark.

All that letting go while still feeling a thread. Hauling water without shadow, without form.

A mystery I find myself drawn into.

A mystery…