- Saturday April 26, 2025 at 10:15am
Everyone is warmly invited to participate in our annual Earth Day celebration, scheduled this year during our Saturday public program. We will offer words of gratitude, intention, and vow to our Mother the Earth on paper ‘ema,’ (strips) in-person or online. Blank ema will be available in the week approaching Earth Day at the temple. Please feel free to either submit an intention online by clicking this link, or stop by in-person (at the table near the base of the large post oak in the front yard of AZC) to write your wish or intention.
*** Pause to gather and purify body and mind before writing your intention, both physically and mentally. You can do this by washing or sanitizing your hands, centering your attention, and opening to the immensity of our interconnectedness with all beings. ***
On Saturday April 26th at 10:15am we will hold our Earth Day ceremony in the front yard at AZC. Following a ritual purification of the space, and a statement by the Guiding Teacher, we will offer bows and incense, and chant an excerpt from Dogen Zenji’s Mountains and Rivers Sutra. During this time the ema will be ceremonially hung from the great post oak that welcomes us every day. The oak tree, which was symbolically ordained in 2014, embodies the great activity and stillness that we are part of. Our natural world greatly needs our respect, care, and stewardship.
The form of our Earth Day ceremony: The Austin Zen Center is a Soto Zen Buddhist temple but this ceremony comes from the Japanese indigenous religion and culture of Shintoism: “the way of the kami.” In Shinto, every mountain, stream, and even rocks and trees have a divine spirit. These deities, known as kami, are friendly to humans. Many Japanese people practice both Shintoism and Buddhism, and Shinto shrines are often found at Buddhist temples in Japan. The reverence and respect for nature is an integral part of our Zen practice.
Shimenawa are lengths of rope (hemp or rice stalks) used for ritual purification in Shinto. They are found at Shinto shrines, torii gates, and sacred landmarks and can vary in diameter from a few centimeters to several meters, and are often decorated with rope tassels and zig-zag paper streamers called shide. A space bound by shimenawa indicates a sacred or pure space.
They are also used around yorishiro (objects capable of attracting spirits and being inhabited by them). These include certain trees, in which case the inhabiting spirits are called kodama, and cutting down these trees is thought to bring misfortune. Hanging white paper shide delineates a sacred space or object, and is an indication that spirits or gods are present.