Lay Ordination of Katharine Ogden
It was with considerable joy that we held a lay ordination ceremony at the temple on June 23 for Katharine Ogden, who has been practicing with us for several years. Katharine affirmed her vow to live by the Buddhist Precepts, joining the family of the Buddhas and Ancestors of the Soto Zen tradition, and all of Buddhism. The Covid era effectively put a stop to our guest program at the old temple, and this is the first lay ordination we have held at our Santa Paula temple. Rev. Phoebe used our Founder’s Shrine as the backdrop for the ordination altar, moving the Quan Yin statue and hanging a version of the ancestral bloodline in its place.
Katharine began attending the Ventura Meditation Group when the monks would visit once a month from the Ozena Valley Temple and would often visit the temple as well—her horse is boarded at a ranch not far away in the Cuyama Valley. Taking the Precepts has been a natural step forward in her steadily deepening commitment to the Buddha’s teaching and practice. We offer her our congratulations and best wishes.
Katharine receiving the wagesa, or token kesa, of lay ordination. A congratulatory tea was held following the ceremony.
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On March 23 we held a day retreat for the usual interval of 9-4, and then in the evening the monks were treated to a performance of the modern dance troupe Shen Yun at a theater in Santa Barbara. Our thanks to Chris Carr and Neena Rodriguez for their generosity in making this possible.
On April 17, Rev. Seikai was invited to give the opening invocation for a meeting of the Santa Paula City Council. He had been recommended by our neighbor, Maddie Sifantus, who is presently retiring from her position of minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Santa Paula, and Jenny Crosswhite, who is a member of the City Council and also a Christian minister. Later, on June 1, Rev. Seikai attended a gathering at the Unitarian Church to honor Rev. Sifantus, and talked with another member of the City Council, Andy Sobel, who expressed gratitude for the invocation, saying he had hoped they could get a Buddhist teacher to join the rotation for doing so.
During May we hired a local handyman, Brooks Hargreaves, to do some repairs on the exterior of the temple. Brooks replaced some weathered siding; added support to the posts which support the upper deck which extends from the meditation hall; replaced some decayed wood in two door lintels; patched cracks in the house foundation; and wired in a light above the steps down to the back garden. He did excellent work, and we are pleased to have found someone we can call upon for this kind of work. Rev. Seikai is getting too old to tackle these kinds of jobs!
Our annual Members’ Meeting was held June 9, attended by four people plus the two monks. Later in the afternoon we held the annual Non-profit Religious Corporation meeting, which included our third board member, Dee Press. Notes of the meeting were sent to those who financially support and/or attend the temple on a regular basis. Our gratitude goes to all who have helped keep the temple going in the past year, and for the input of those who attended the meeting.
On June 17 Rev. Seikai was invited to visit the Ventura Insight Meditation Group for their Monday evening meeting. He was warmly welcomed and there were several familiar faces among the 20 or so people in attendance that evening.
Wesak, 2024
Wesak, the biggest Buddhist festival of the year, honoring the Buddha’s birth, life and teaching, was held May 19, during the full moon of May. The altar was full of flowers from our garden. In Japan, Wesak is known as Hanamatsuri—the Festival of Flowers—and we collected, coreopsis daisies, Mexican sage, callistemon, Jupiter’s beard, white irises, statice, heliotrope, and we added our living, potted Bodhi Tree. Those in attendance ladled water over the baby Buddha, chanted an invocation written by Rev. Seikai, and heard a Dharma Talk given by Rev. Phoebe. Afterwards we shared all sorts of good food people had brought for the occasion.
Pine Mountain Buddhist Temple. 