On Sunday, February 21st, at the end of Bodhidharma Sesshin, the Monastery held a funeral service for senior monastic Mujaku Senjin. After services and eulogies in a very full zendo, the sangha processed up to the cemetery for a short service at the chapel.

Shugen Sensei offered this memorial poem for Senjin:

Like rain seeking parched earth,
or sunlight bathing winter’s ice,
all creatures are ceaselessly returning to the source.
How would you speak of it?

Long night’s journey into dawn,
is so much effort lost.
Yet. . . Yet!

O Homeleaver,
having cast off your weary skhandas,
where now will rest these bones?

A iiiiiiii eeeeeeee

Now, as before, they never were yours to keep.
All possessions lost,
the secret is revealed.
Even the cold northern wind
can’t hinder the eternal spring.

This short film—A Glimpse of Senjin—was made by Hokyu Aronson, MRO: