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The winter holidays are family time around my house. Decades ago, my mother began a tradition of gathering her six children and our broods on Christmas Eve. A few nights ago we numbered nearly thirty. As the seasonal rains murmured through the downspouts, we threw juniper chunks on the fire, tucked into our potluck feast, and later played some very silly games.

Traditionally, the ceremony by which Buddhist monks are ordained is called shukke (出家)—home departure—which is a grave severing of the filial duties most Asian societies expect of children. Zen’s Sixth Ancestor Huineng was making a meager living selling firewood while he and his mother suffered extreme poverty. On hearing a monk chant the Diamond Sutra, Huineng awakened and knew he must leave his mother and travel to a monastery in the north to study Zen. He left one small family to find another.

Layman Pang, who lived a couple of generations after Huineng, is probably the best known family man from the golden age of Chan-Zen. After studying with Mazu, he traveled about with his wife and two children, visiting various temples and teachers.

Layman Pang and his daughter Lingzhao were selling bamboo baskets. Coming down off a bridge he stumbled and fell. When Lingzhao saw this she ran to her father’s side and threw herself on the ground.
“What are you doing?” cried the Layman.
“I saw Daddy fall down, so I’m helping,“ replied Lingzhao.
“Luckily no one was looking,“ remarked the Layman.

—The Recorded Sayings of Layman Pang, The Anecdotes

“I take refuge in my companions,” is the third of the PZI Refuge Vows, which include taking refuge in awakening and the teachings. When we join a sangha, we come together as a kind of family—as brothers and sisters on the path. It is a familial act to look after one another: a check-in, a brief note, sitting together in the Open Temple. This is what family members do: they fall down together on the road. And then they pick up the baskets together.

This is how we come to understand our relationship to the greater household we live in, the community of all things. Rocks, sticks, ants and grizzly bears support us, and it is lovely that we, in turn, support them.

—Jon Joseph

COME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome.

Jon Joseph Roshi, Director of San Mateo Zen Community