Ritual planning
Depending on how you count it, either today, tomorrow, or Monday is Kwan Yin's birthday, the first of Her three big feast days in the year. As I mentioned awhile back, one of my "assignments" this year is to lead a small ritual for Her at the Spring Festival, which we're actually doing next Sunday due to scheduling issues.
It's been awhile since I've led any sort of ritual, and the last several were all in a UU context, where it is not only okay but kind of preferable to get overly-cerebral about things. (Interestingly, the most controversial service I ever did was the one about Her in which I led a guided meditation on compassion that some found a bit too radical. Of course, that was the point. Having compassion for people it's easy to have compassion for is hardly a spiritual challenge.) That isn't what I want to do, though. I need to cover a little background, as most Temple members just barely know Who She is. (Ha! Good luck boiling down over a thousand years of mythology across multiple cultures, plus fun cross-contamination along the Silk Road.) But I want it to be more of a celebration and an honoring than a history lesson. Of course, I have to sort of wing it as to how that should look, because the couple of traditional festivals of Hers that I've attended have been mostly done in Chinese, so I'm still not entirely sure what, exactly, was going on. Also, chanting an excerpt from the Lotus Sutra might be doable, but the one thing I have learned is apparently it's traditional to chant the entire chapter relating to Her. That's ... something I'm up for doing on my own and thoroughly love participating in at the monastery, but probably a tad unwieldy in this context.
I'm reminded of the final episode of The Vicar of Dibley in which Frank says he's thinking of the Gospel of Matthew for the vicar's wedding. "Which bit?" she asks, to which he replies, "The whole thing." I sympathize with him. I tend to go a bit overboard too. But I have a feeling the vicar's --and audience's-- reaction to "the whole thing" would be about the same as my fellow temple members'. She's not their Patroness; She's mine. What makes perfect sense for me or anyone else devoted to Her does not necessarily make sense when dealing with a larger group who barely know Her. Also, the chant done at CYM is gorgeous, but is in a musical tradition that I'm not familiar enough with to even really try to reproduce. I do have that CD I got awhile back, but it's in Chinese, and if I do include part of the Lotus Sutra at all, it only makes sense to do so in English so that any of us know what is being said.
I'm also wrestling with how to incorporate healing work for Japan into this. Because that has to be a component. It has to. How could it not? If all of us were Reiki practitioners, that would be the obvious way to go, simply because of the discipline's origins. Several are, but not all. And every time I try to think of ways to broaden or adapt an invocation, I run up against the problem of simply not knowing how She is approached in a Japanese context. All the books I have make at most a passing reference to the fact She is "also known as Kannon in Japan, Quan The An in Viet Nam ..." etc, but then all of the mythology and such refers back to China. Which, for the most part, has just been an intellectual frustration. I primarily feel drawn to Her as I first met Her and have come to know Her, which is through the Chinese mythology and Buddhist writings. I'd just like to know more. This time, it feels like I really should be including at least something that is explicitly a Japanese way of honoring Her. I'm just clueless as to what that would mean or look like.
For example, lighting candles as invocation is not something I've ever seen done at the monastery. Lighting incense sticks, however, very much is. But I've no clue if that is done in Japan as well. None of the sites I've come up with by Googling has been much help in that regard. Though, the higher quality incense sticks all seem to be made in Japan, which would suggest it is a practice that is done there.
Ultimately, I suppose form isn't as important as I'm making it. Among other things, while my worship of Her is informed by Buddhism and what little I know of Chinese folk worship, it's not ultimately Buddhist or Chinese. It just is what it is. Doing healing work with Her for Japan does not particularly need to be done in a Japanese way, and in fact, it might be more respectful to simply not try to "do it in a more Japanese way" rather than to end up doing something half-assed. Using the forms I usually do to connect with Her probably makes more sense. It just feels like there's a piece missing, and I'm not sure what that is. I guess there's part of me looking for just a simple symbol to include on the shrine that is specifically Japanese in origin, as a way of acknowledging Her specific tie to the Japanese people, but those symbols I know to associate with Her either seem to date all the way back to India or else seem to be very Chinese.
I guess what I'm taking away from this navel-gazing for now is that I should stick with what I know, and if I do find some sort of symbolic item that makes sense to include, then do that.
Right, so what I'm thinking now is something along these lines.
1st part of the day - However the hieros organizes the primary Hellenic ritual.
My bit - Create a small, temporary shrine to Kwan Yin/Kannon. Use offering bowl of jasmine rice and fruit. Tell a brief version of the Miao Shan myth. Possible Lotus Sutra excerpt. Tea offering. Healing work for Japan, including incense offerings. Close.
Feast.
Festival closing.
That seems reasonable. I should type that up with a little more detail and send it to Tim for his feedback on how it fits into the day. I'm also thinking, and for this I'd definitely need his permission, of asking anyone who was planning to bring something to offer Her to take that money and send it to Doctors Without Borders or the Red Cross instead, even if it's just a dollar or two, as I know lots of us are pretty cash-strapped and offerings tend to come from whatever's on sale in the stores that week. I have all we need for the ritual already, anyway, so if people are going to spend money, I'd as soon it go to one of those groups. Or they could put it in a separate offering bowl and I could send it off. Or something.
It's been awhile since I've led any sort of ritual, and the last several were all in a UU context, where it is not only okay but kind of preferable to get overly-cerebral about things. (Interestingly, the most controversial service I ever did was the one about Her in which I led a guided meditation on compassion that some found a bit too radical. Of course, that was the point. Having compassion for people it's easy to have compassion for is hardly a spiritual challenge.) That isn't what I want to do, though. I need to cover a little background, as most Temple members just barely know Who She is. (Ha! Good luck boiling down over a thousand years of mythology across multiple cultures, plus fun cross-contamination along the Silk Road.) But I want it to be more of a celebration and an honoring than a history lesson. Of course, I have to sort of wing it as to how that should look, because the couple of traditional festivals of Hers that I've attended have been mostly done in Chinese, so I'm still not entirely sure what, exactly, was going on. Also, chanting an excerpt from the Lotus Sutra might be doable, but the one thing I have learned is apparently it's traditional to chant the entire chapter relating to Her. That's ... something I'm up for doing on my own and thoroughly love participating in at the monastery, but probably a tad unwieldy in this context.
I'm reminded of the final episode of The Vicar of Dibley in which Frank says he's thinking of the Gospel of Matthew for the vicar's wedding. "Which bit?" she asks, to which he replies, "The whole thing." I sympathize with him. I tend to go a bit overboard too. But I have a feeling the vicar's --and audience's-- reaction to "the whole thing" would be about the same as my fellow temple members'. She's not their Patroness; She's mine. What makes perfect sense for me or anyone else devoted to Her does not necessarily make sense when dealing with a larger group who barely know Her. Also, the chant done at CYM is gorgeous, but is in a musical tradition that I'm not familiar enough with to even really try to reproduce. I do have that CD I got awhile back, but it's in Chinese, and if I do include part of the Lotus Sutra at all, it only makes sense to do so in English so that any of us know what is being said.
I'm also wrestling with how to incorporate healing work for Japan into this. Because that has to be a component. It has to. How could it not? If all of us were Reiki practitioners, that would be the obvious way to go, simply because of the discipline's origins. Several are, but not all. And every time I try to think of ways to broaden or adapt an invocation, I run up against the problem of simply not knowing how She is approached in a Japanese context. All the books I have make at most a passing reference to the fact She is "also known as Kannon in Japan, Quan The An in Viet Nam ..." etc, but then all of the mythology and such refers back to China. Which, for the most part, has just been an intellectual frustration. I primarily feel drawn to Her as I first met Her and have come to know Her, which is through the Chinese mythology and Buddhist writings. I'd just like to know more. This time, it feels like I really should be including at least something that is explicitly a Japanese way of honoring Her. I'm just clueless as to what that would mean or look like.
For example, lighting candles as invocation is not something I've ever seen done at the monastery. Lighting incense sticks, however, very much is. But I've no clue if that is done in Japan as well. None of the sites I've come up with by Googling has been much help in that regard. Though, the higher quality incense sticks all seem to be made in Japan, which would suggest it is a practice that is done there.
Ultimately, I suppose form isn't as important as I'm making it. Among other things, while my worship of Her is informed by Buddhism and what little I know of Chinese folk worship, it's not ultimately Buddhist or Chinese. It just is what it is. Doing healing work with Her for Japan does not particularly need to be done in a Japanese way, and in fact, it might be more respectful to simply not try to "do it in a more Japanese way" rather than to end up doing something half-assed. Using the forms I usually do to connect with Her probably makes more sense. It just feels like there's a piece missing, and I'm not sure what that is. I guess there's part of me looking for just a simple symbol to include on the shrine that is specifically Japanese in origin, as a way of acknowledging Her specific tie to the Japanese people, but those symbols I know to associate with Her either seem to date all the way back to India or else seem to be very Chinese.
I guess what I'm taking away from this navel-gazing for now is that I should stick with what I know, and if I do find some sort of symbolic item that makes sense to include, then do that.
Right, so what I'm thinking now is something along these lines.
1st part of the day - However the hieros organizes the primary Hellenic ritual.
My bit - Create a small, temporary shrine to Kwan Yin/Kannon. Use offering bowl of jasmine rice and fruit. Tell a brief version of the Miao Shan myth. Possible Lotus Sutra excerpt. Tea offering. Healing work for Japan, including incense offerings. Close.
Feast.
Festival closing.
That seems reasonable. I should type that up with a little more detail and send it to Tim for his feedback on how it fits into the day. I'm also thinking, and for this I'd definitely need his permission, of asking anyone who was planning to bring something to offer Her to take that money and send it to Doctors Without Borders or the Red Cross instead, even if it's just a dollar or two, as I know lots of us are pretty cash-strapped and offerings tend to come from whatever's on sale in the stores that week. I have all we need for the ritual already, anyway, so if people are going to spend money, I'd as soon it go to one of those groups. Or they could put it in a separate offering bowl and I could send it off. Or something.