New Year’s Eve Celebration
This year we’ll be celebrating and practicing together remotely. This is a two-part evening 6-8pm and then 10pm-midnight. See the Zoom link below for the entire evening, and the Zoom room will stay open in between. There is no need to register and no charge for this event.
The first part will involve a social dinner from 6-7pm, in which participants can eat their own dinner while chatting in breakout rooms with a variety of other sangha members. Breakout rooms will be changed several times over the hour, to allow a wider variety of sangha connections. From 7-8pm there will be a dance party.
The second part of the evening will be more formal, allowing participants to access a variety of practices that are done in our lineage to mark the New Year. For instance we do prostrations before the New Years as a way of acknowledging the mistakes of the past year, and then prostrations the next morning to set our intention to cultivate wholesome qualities. The number of prostrations is endless, so most people interpret that as 35, but see what fits for you. Kakumyo will give a welcome at 10pm, and then we’ll start with an hour of zazen (or zazen with prostrations), during which the temple bell will be rung 108 times. Then there will be a short dharma talk and opportunity for sharing reflections, followed by an explanation of the ceremony and how to follow along. (You will need a dharma book or three, ideally a wisdom sutra would be in the mix). Then we’ll do the New Years ceremony, and serve formal tea to all assembled (you will need some sparkling cider or something to drink at this point). That will be right around midnight, at which point the temple bell will be rung another 108 times.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82606329058?pwd=Q05VdUR4b2ZpSXJ4Nm1XSllSRi9lUT09
Meeting ID: 826 0632 9058
Passcode: 389440