The Nov 8 maple tree welcoming ceremony at City Center was led by Abbot Ryushin Paul Haller. After chanting the Enmei Jukku Kannon Gyo, poems were read, including Jane Hirshfield’s Tree: “Already the first branch-tips brush at the window. / Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.”
Photo by Kate Sommers-Dawes
Marcia Lieberman, City Center’s gardener, with support and direct help from the staff and residents, as well as a landscaper, facilitated the replacement of the southeast front corner planted area in front of 300 Page Street with Japanese maple trees and other plantings.
The plantings and the refurbishment were commemorated in the eko accompanying the ceremony:
Having chanted the Enmei Jukku Kannon Gyo for protecting life,
and having purified the plants and earth of this temple ground,
We dedicate this merit and virtue to:
The well-being and abundance of
the Japanese maples, sango kaku, the wisteria,
the loropetalum chinense, the rhaphiolepsis umbellaia.
May they take root and thrive, and expound the Dharma of the Great Earth,
that all beings, animals and plants may be joyous,
free from suffering, and live in harmonious Buddha fields.
Photo by Kate Sommers-Dawes
