Places of Remembrance for Taihaku Roshi (newsletter article)

 

by Rev. Kenzan Seidenberg

Taihaku Roshi designed the Temple with an exquisite attention to detail: every inch has been touched -- polyurethaned, painted, cleaned -- cared for.  For more than twenty years, she filled the space between the temple walls with the energy of her practice.  To be here, to be within the temple is to be within the mind of Taihaku Roshi.  And the surrounding land echoes her presence with the cawing of ravens and the brilliant flashing of fireflies.  Everywhere on the Shao Shan Temple land is a place of remembrance of Taihaku Roshi. 

And there are also a few places where that is more visibly the case and where her cremated remains are lovingly honored.

Taihaku Roshi was ever cognizant of life’s impermanence and had details written out well in advance, including that she wanted to be cremated and that her cremated remains be buried in the Shao Shan Temple cemetery.  In the cemetery, the area to the left of the ceremonial circle is the designated area for temple priests and abbots.  Within this area, she had selected a spot as near as possible to her mother and marked it with a small quartz rock -- in a spot in the shade of hemlock, birch, and maple and with a view of the mountains, as if she watches over the temple and the comings and goings of the sangha. 

The large white quartz rock that now marks her grave symbolizes both her name Taihaku, which means “Great White,” and also provides a connection with White Jewel Mountain which is located above the cemetery.  In front of the large stone is a memorial marker which reads: 

The Japanese calligraphy on the first line (太白) is her name “Tai-Haku” meaning “Great White” or symbolically, “Great Purity.” On the second line,  性山, means “Shao Shan” and 開山) means “monastery founder” (Literally the two Japanese characters for monastery founder mean “Opener of the Mountain.”)

 

Most of her cremated remains are in the cemetery;  however, a small amount are in two other locations.  The first is under the “Jakuen Stone.”  Walking from the upper parking lot along the path to the temple, in the second moss garden, there is a small copper sign announcing “Jakuen Stone.” Taihaku Roshi called this rock the Jakuen Stone because it looks like a monk standing with hands folded.  During her training at Hokoyoji Monastery, Taihaku Roshi was in part sustained by a sense of connection to Jakuen Zenji.  Jakuen Zenji was the founder of Hokyoji Monastery, but he was not Japanese – he was a Chinese monk who came back to Japan with Eihei Dogen Zenji – so he too was a foreigner. 

The second place where there are a very small amount of Taihaku Roshi’s cremated remains is in the Temple Small Room (the room on the Buddha’s right).  Here in the Small Room is an altar dedicated to Taihaku Roshi.  Many of the elements on the Taihaku Altar were there previously. From the beginning, Taihaku Roshi had an altar there to honor the teachers in her life.  The photos on the altar are (from right to left) Jakuen Zenji (Hokyoji founder), “Dochosan” (Shinkai Yoitsu Daiosho, her teacher), Taihaku Roshi, Hakusan Roshi (and others including a young Dochosan), Kirpal Singh (the guru in the Sant Mat tradition, Taihaku Roshi’s early spiritual practice prior to Soto Zen), and Kirpal Singh together with Nina (Taihaku Roshi in her 20s lived with Nina at the Wawasiki Ashram).  Only the photos of Taihaku Roshi and Dochosan were added after her passing.  Below in the center is a large group photo of the 2013 Mountain Seat Ceremony (Shinzanshiki) when Taihaku Roshi formally became abbot in a ceremony attended by numerous priests from around the country and a large number from Japan. 

In addition to the photos, in the center there is a black and gold Memorial Tablet or “ihei.”  This is traditional on Japanese memorial altars and it is like a small stupa, a kind of prayer in physical form.  Down the front of the ihei it says “Shao Shan Founder Taihaku Nishiren Daiosho True Rank.” On the back is her date of passing.  In addition to candles and fresh flowers, on the altar are also small offerings of food and daily fresh coffee or tea.  Sometimes these are kinds of food that she specifically liked, sometimes they are a portion of some food donated to the temple.  During the gardening season, there is usually something offered from the garden.

Some sangha members greet Taihaku Roshi at the Taihaku Altar in the Small Room, some greet her at the Great White rock in the cemetery, some imbibe her presence in the garden (“The Leafye Garden”) or in the Zendo.  All are places of remembrance.