Hanamatsuri means flower festival in Japanese and is the time of the year when the birth of Siddhatha Gotma is celebrated. It is a new beginning and coincides with a rebirth in the transformational context of joy and sorrow and the possibility of shifting from ignorance to enlightenment.
This Tuesday night April 29, 2025 we will celebrate the Buddha’s birth in a ceremony that is both Soto Zen and Cambodian Theravaden in background. The former is based on the teachings of Taiun Elliston Roshi and the latter Ven. Dr. Kou Sopheap, a monk I met and worked with in 2008.
I will tell the story of Siddhartha’s mother and aunt passed down for 2500 years and seek insights from you as we ponder this event and its role in our practice.
Also thanks to Matt-san we have a new research tool within our new website that allows you to search my previous Dharma Notes by Topic. So, by connecting to https://fszs.org/?s=Hanamatsuri you can check out thirteen times Hanamatsuri has been mentioned by me in talks over the years.
Two more things. One we will bathe all the icons of Buddha and Boshisattvas. You may bring yours from home (flowers too) to the First Congregation Church of Falmouth and if you are on Zoom, use a flower or an evergreen bow to dip in water and splash your icons at home, as we recite The Kannon Sutra.
Finally for those of you at the zendo, you get to bathe me as well by sprinkling water on my head. I’ll talk about Ven. Kou and his teaching on this ceremony. https://zoom.fszs.org (Password: FSZS)
This is a wonderfully joyous celebration and please join us if you can.
Sangaku