Our beloved Samish Island Campground is holding it's annual call for volunteer help: the Work Week.

Friday, April 28 - Friday, May 5

Room and board are offered in exchange for help with projects of all kinds from cleaning and yardwork to technical carpentry. You can come for the day, overnight, or several days.

Please contact Camp Manager Christine Campbell at samishbird@gmail.com if you'd like to help

We've created a new & revised page on the website for coordinating the many volunteering needs of the sangha. From one-time wishes to ongoing commitments in our committees. See the Committees & Volunteering page here (available under About and also under Practice).

Thank you for your support!

Hi All,

As we roll into Spring we've decided to reduce the Sunday 10am Zen Alive! program to once a month. The meeting will generally be on the first Sunday of the month but please check the website for dates. If you register for Zen Alive! the system will send you a reminder email during the week before each meeting also.

Erin Suda, a friend of Bob Penny's sent us this request for help:

I wanted to reach out because my mom went missing from the Kendall area on March 10th and we have been looking for her ever since.

My family is putting together a Prayer Circle to Bring Julie Home this Sunday the 26th at 3pm at Maritime Heritage Park, and we would like to invite the Buddhist community to join.

My mother would love to know that an inter-denominational group was brought together in prayer on her behalf.

Let me know if you have any questions or if anyone from your group is inspired to share a prayer. Thanks and blessings

A group of folks will be working on clearing brush piles and downed limbs at our Cedarwood property at 10am this Friday March 24th. Bring gloves, pruners, or garden trimming tools if you have them.

Contact Mary Durbrow with questions. mdurbrow1@gmail.com

We are blessed with two upcoming Red Cedar Zen Dharma Classes.

Our annual Precepts Class is this year led by Practice Leaders Seiu Hannah Sullivand and Joden Bob Rose starts on Weds March 29th. It's an 8 month process with monthly class meetings giving plenty of time to reflect and study how the Zen Precepts can inform the way you live you life. This course is also pre-requestite for receiving the precepts formally in the jukai ceremony.

And a new arrival is Nomon Tim will be offering a Monday evening Dharma Class on the Lotus Sutra starting on Mon April 3rd. A neat opportunity to take a deep dive into a revered (and pretty far out!) traditional text.

Red Cedar Zen Community's Wilderness Dharma Program begins another year of mindful and ritual journeys throughout our local watersheds, and we warmly invite you to come out for a walk, a hike, or a full backpack.

We offer a wide variety of experiences, suitable for a wide range of interests and abilities. Our walks and hikes are arranged into two broad groups - our "Following the Way of Water" series of journeys up into the high country of our local world, and our "Opening to Nature" series of explorations into the diversity of lowland environs which surrounds us right here at home.

We begin the season with our Receiving Water/HIlls and Streams Hike on Saturday, March 25th, timed to coincide closely with the Spring Equinox. Each year we receive a vial of Salish Sea water, and carry it with us throughout our hikes, exchanging it with fresh mountain water at the highest points we can reach of the three branches of the Nooksack River, and returning that mountain water to the Salish Sea at season's end.

This poignant ceremony on the beach can be attended separately, or together with, the hike led by Hegaku Talus Latona, which immediately follows. On that "HIlls and Streams" hike we will recite the entirety of the Genjo Koan by Eihei Dogen. Please consider joining this shoreside ritual, and the hike if you choose, and put your energy and well-wishes into the vial of water we will be walking with throughout the season.

We will follow this with our next hike, the popular Circumambulation of Mt. Eire on April 9th, which coincides closely with Buddha's birthday. Led by Jodan Bob Rose, the hike ritually circles the small seaside mountain, protected years ago partly through the efforts of Jodan Bob himself. Our first ceremony on the hike visits the "Poet's Tree", and each participant is asked to bring a short piece of writing to welcome the spring.

You can see the full list of this season's programs here. Be sure to take note of a new program, the Cedarwood Pilgrimage on August 17th, which weaves our new building into the ritual matrix of walks we annually perform, and gives an opportunity for community members to send off our team of hikers to the high country for our Mountains and Rivers Backpack.

Yours in nature,

Reizan Bob Penny and the Wilderness Dharma Program team

Hi dear Sangha,

I just put a page together clarifying how the private interviews with a teacher in Zen work. Hope you find it helpful: Private Interview with the Teachers.

- Nomon Tim

Ryushin Andrea joined us at Zen Alive to offer a talk on Buddha Taught Nirvana. Have a listen!

Sesshin is a wonderful opportunity to deepen into Zen mediation in community. The Practice Period Closing Sesshin is open to everyone regardless of your participation in this year's Winter Practice Period. Thursday evening March 9th through Saturday afternoon March 11th at our Zendo in the Bellingham Unitarian Church. Available also on zoom. Talks and interviews with Nomon Tim Burnett and Ryushin Andrea Thach. And a Dharma talk by Ikushun Desiree Webster. Vegetarian meals provided.