Jizo is the beloved Great Bodhisattva found within many Buddhist traditions, who carries us across the threshold of death and loss and safely accompanies us through the ‘hell zones’ of deep suffering.

Especially honored in Japan, Jizo (also known as ‘Earth Store’ or ‘Earth Womb’) brings to us the qualities of courage, fearlessness, and tenderness needed to enter into our experiences of grief and loss and to open our hearts to the mystery of life and death.

This will be a sacred time for us to come together to acknowledge and remember the death of someone dear to us or another kind of significant loss, whether recent or from long ago. We will take refuge in the safe container of our shared presence with each other for the sake of our healing.

We will be introduced to this ceremony by our facilitator and then in silence we will create hand-made offerings for our loved ones. In a ceremony of remembrance we will honor their lives and our relationship with them. We will complete the ceremony with a processional into our garden to offer prayer flag messages for the dying and for ourselves as we continue to live our lives.

In this sacred space we will together turn towards the complexity of grief and discover the strength that arises when we embrace our interconnectedness with all beings.

For further information contact: Paravrtti Doralee Grindler Katonah at Ino@valleystreamszen.org.

This ceremony has been brought to us from Japan by Yvonne Rand and Jan Chosen-Bays and transmitted to Chris Forten and Sarah Emerson (all transmitted Zen Priests). Paravrtti Doralee Grindler Katonah will lead this fourth inter-sangha event. She has had two years of training in preparation for guiding this ceremony.

Parāvṛtti Doralee Grindler Katonah serves as Ino, or head of the meditation hall. She studied in the Soto Zen lineage with Sojun Diane Martin, founder and guiding teacher of Udumbara Zen Center in Illinois and Rev. Val Szymanski, Head Priest of Bamboo in the Wind Zen Center in Sunnyvale, California. She was lay ordained in 2008 and priest ordained in 2019. She served as head student for the Spring practice period at Bamboo in the Wind Zen Sangha in May 2022. She offers Practice Interviews upon request.