Empty Hand Zen Center

In July, together with Deb Wood and Glynn DeBrocky I had the privilege of attending a four-day sewing retreat at San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC) led by Zenkei Blanche Hartman.  Each morning at 8:30 we would arrive at the sewing room -- a small space in the converted, shallow basement of a building adjoining SFZC City Center. Incense would be offered and bows made, and we would then take our place at a cushion around a low table and resume the sewing of our okesa, the Buddha’s robe, taking Refuge with each stitch. 

I arrived Sunday afternoon with seven yards of brown cotton voile to be measured and cut by Blanche Hartman into the pieces that will ultimately comprise the teachers’ okesa that I’m to receive as part of Dharma Transmission.  While Blanche measured and cut, her assistant, Ren Bunce, saw to it that I mastered the required stitch.  When Blanche was done and I had passed (or nearly passed) my stitching test, Ren and I folded and pinned together the three pieces for each of the seven panels that make up the “rice field,” the main body of the garment.  Only at that point could the sewing begin. 

After the arrival of Deb and Glynn the next day, the daily schedule took on a regular rhythm: morning sewing, lunch, afternoon sewing, and dinner.  During the day we would be periodically joined by Jean Selkirk, sewing teacher at Berkley Zen Center, who assured that our preparations for the retreat had been seen to and who shared sewing management responsibilities with Blanche during our retreat; by Blanche Hartman’s sewing students, Ren Bunce and Tim Wicks, who provided us with invaluable assistance; and by other members of SFZC who were sewing their own okesa or a rakusu.  After dinner on Tuesday and Thursday, we joined the regular SFZC sewing class and continued our work until just before 9:00.  On Monday night it was early-to-bed for us three jet-lagged east coasters; but on Wednesday night we hosted dinner for our sewing teachers, Blanche Hartman and Jean Selkirk, at a downtown restaurant.  There, to our joy (and amazement) we were treated to a rousing rendition by Blanche of “When You’re Down and Out” to serve as a mnemonic for the proper alignment of the twenty-one pieces that comprise the “rice field”!  

Frankly, although I had sewn my own rakusus in the past and helped other sangha members with theirs, an appreciation of robe sewing as a profound Dharma practice had never been established in me.  No matter how meditative the moment-to-moment sewing experience was at times, the focus for me had always been on completing the garment.  That changed, however, with my participation in this sewing retreat.  Day by day, stitch by stitch, I came to see this sewing as Dharma practice; yes, garments would be completed, but the sewing was not about completing anything – there would always be another robe to be sewn as long as I took up its sewing.  “Vast is the robe of liberation,” we chant each time we put on our robe; vast indeed and always in need of “sewing”!  A perspective gained unexpectedly; I bow deeply to all my sewing teachers.