Lay leader day
A month or so ago was my first experience as
the chair of our Sunday service. As a lay leader part of our responsibilities
to the temple is to be the chair of the service and to guide the path of the
service, to introduce the sequence of the service and to lead the meditation
aspiration and the meditation compassion.
The chair needs to stand in front of the
Hondo at a podium when he or she introduces each segment of the service. In
order to stand at the podium in the front the chair obviously needs to sit in a
front row. Being the Backseat Buddhist that I am this was a new experience for
me.
As many people do I have my favorite seat
and my favorite seat is on the backseat on left side aisle of the Hondo. I
would say over 90% of my time attending Sunday services my chosen seat has been
in the back row on the right side.
Sometimes someone gets to “my seat” before me and then I need to sit elsewhere.
I will stay close to the backseat and sit in the second row from the back.
I sit in the backseat so I can be as far
away from the incense as possible (remember I wrote about my incense allergies
in the first post in this blog). But sitting in the backseat provides many
fringe benefits. I get to observe many things. I have a global view of the service
and of those attending the service.
The most obvious observation is that I see
where everyone else sits and most Sangha members have their favorite preferred
seats and I can tell you where they are.
A Backseat Buddhist can easily identify when there are visitors in the
service and also knows when new visitors have temporarily displaced other Sangha
members from their favorite seats. Much like in college when students sit all semester in the
same seat where they sat on the first day of class. Then one day a student sits
in a different seat, which then bumps all other students into sitting in a different
seat. For some reason the
students can handle this shift for that day but by the next class students are
back to their first day of class seat. So, when first time visitors come to
service some Sangha members may have to make the same transitional shift away from the comfort of their favorite seats. Actually this simple act of changing seats puts into action a
Buddhist ideology of causes and conditions.
A Backseat Buddhist has a view of the
Naijin where he or she can see the hustsodon and all
the symbols that represent various aspects of Buddhism. Sitting in the back seat for me is like
looking at a play or a piece of art. I get to see the aesthetic appreciation
rather than being too close to see the true essence of my experience.
I
digress…. back to the front row
As the chair for the service when I had to sit in
the front row in between the various introductions on
the service I would make casual observations. To be honest I saw very
little. I could see the sensei who
sits on the stage left in the Naijin and I could see
the hustsodon. But I could not see
the other Sangha members and I could not see the lay ministers on the stage
right of the Naijin and I could not see the global beauty of
the Naijin. However, I did have a more detailed view of that which is on the
Naijin.
I could see a few people to the right of me
if I turned my body a little. When
I went to the podium in the front to perform the introductions I could then see
the entire Sangha facing front. I saw their faces while usually I only see the
back of heads.
I did not see much of their faces because
introduction times are brief, but when I did see their faces they had kind
joyful encouraging expressions. The best time I saw the collective face of the
Sangha was at the end of the service when sharing the announcements. Like a
good teacher, I tired to make eye contact with as many sections
of the Hondo as possible and not just to look at one section.
I noticed that the left side of the Hondo
had a few more Sangha members than on the right side. I was impressed that the
Sangha members tend to sit throughout the temple so that not just the back is
full or not just the front is full. The Sangha members nicely represent throughout
the temple.
Like me, as a Backseat Buddhist, there are
right or left middle seat Buddhists, or right or left middle semi front seat
Buddhists, and yes, there are other backseat Buddhists. Each Sangha member has
his/her reason why they chose to sit where they do.
The aroma of the incense was not as bad as I
thought it might be – but I was armed with mints, which helped me. I also had a modest cold, which might have
diffused the incense.
I noticed as a Front Seat Buddhist one needs
a good night sleep so he/she does not nod off every now and then. Someone sitting not far from me had
that dreaded experience of the head nodding and almost falling asleep and then
doing a quick head jerk to wake up.
I really needed to bite my lip and not laugh a little when watching this
person but watching helped to take away a little of the nervousness I had as my
first chairperson experience.
The next week after being the chair I returned
to being a Backseat on the Aisle Buddhist. It is not just a comfort level and away from the incense for
me in the backseat but it is also a learning and observing experience. Maybe with time I will become
adventurous and move up a row or two and in doing so I will learn new experiences and new aspects of being a Buddhist. But I do not see this adventure in
the near future. Remember if I change my seat I will cause the ripple effect of
others who may then need to change their seats, and that is a lot of
responsibility.
Maybe in the near future, if you come to
service, you just might see me seating is a different seat but not too far from
my Backseat.
Namu Amida Butso
BSB
"Ushiro ni
suwatta monto"
