White Forest Sangha
The White Forest Sangha (WFS) is a 21st century Western lay Zen Buddhist practice community rooted in the ancestral lineage teachings of Ch’an and Zen. We inherit from these traditions the practice of vow, meditation, and wisdom-compassion.
A Practice Community
As a practice community, a sangha, our roots are firmly planted in the Zen Buddhist traditions transmitted from the East to the West. Our sangha members come from a variety of directions, with members experienced in Soto, Rinzai, and ‘fusion’ lineages. Currently the senior students are all most closely aligned with the Soto Zen tradition lineages traced to Shogaku Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, but the WFS is not a formal Soto Zen School affiliate.
The seed of the White Forest Sangha was first planted in early 2014, shortly after one of the founding members was ordained as Soto Zen priest. The original sangha had six members and met weekly in a rented room in a Victorian mansion on Downing Street in central Denver. Over time we began to self-identify as “the Downing Street Zazenkai“, the Downing Street Meditation Group. But the DSZ did more than just meditate together, engaged in liturgy and formal study. We developed a sangha practice.
By 2018 the sprouted seed had taken root, and in October of that year the DSZ incorporated as a 501c3, tax exempt religious organization, the “White Forest Sangha Inc”. This allowed us to seek donations, expand our offerings, and begin planning for the time when the Downing Street location would no longer be available.
Over the next two years our weekly zazenkai was vigorous and lively. We supplemented our practice with half-day and all day sits at the Downing Street zendo or in a member’s home zendo. Our liturgical practice expanded to include the beginnings of the ritual Zen meal, oryoki, and a monthly Ryaku Fusatsu Service, the chanting service of repentance and vow which dates to the time of Shakyamuni Buddha. The sangha study continued unabated. With the help of our dear teacher and mentor, Kazuaki Tanahashi Sensei, we worked through the Shoyoroku (the “Book of Serenity”), a 12th century Chinese koan collection. This work was a two and a half year project which included poetry, music, visual art, and Zen Theatre. On the sapling’s nascent trunk, branches began to appear.
The Age of Covid
Like much of the Western world, the WFS retreated from in-person practice, and went online. We continued to meet via Zoom, with online meditation, liturgy, and study, separated in place but in the same place. Even though pruned in time and space, the sangha continued to grow. Some of the founders had fallen like autumn leaves, and new members appeared like the buds of spring, but the sangha survived. As the miasma of the global pandemic began to ease it felt like a door was opening. We needed to walk through.
Planning for the Future
Planning began and funds were raised for the building of a stand-alone WFS Zen Center. In 2021 we acquired a lot in the Denver suburb of Lakewood for this purpose. But the time to re-gather, to establish a practice community in a real-time-space location had come.
Due to the diligence of sangha members an affordable site was found in the basement of a Presbyterian Church in central Denver and the WFS joined in the faith community of the Capitol Hill United Ministries.
We moved our beloved Downing Street Zendo, to the non-localized Zoomdo of Covid, to a new home at 1100 Fillmore Street in central Denver. Here we founded the Zenchishiki-do, the “Hall of the Good Friends,” and established our here and now practice. Pruned branches showed new growth.
Our New Home
In our new home we have been able to offer new practice opportunities to our sangha, and to those seeking sangha practice. In 2021 we conducted our first Jukai ceremony, the formal transmission of the vows and the robe of the Buddha. We began a weekly Tuesday night “Beginner’s Mind” meditation group, an introduction to Zen ritual and meditation led by a senior sangha member.
Our weekly zazenkai continues, both in-person and online, with zazen, liturgy, and group study, each Wednesday night. Saturday mornings we meet for two periods of zazen, a period of kinhin (walking meditation), and liturgy, followed by informal discussion. Viewing the week as a whole, it flows from least formal, least monastic like, to the most formal, most monastic like. But in actuality there is no gap, no separation. Each sangha activity contains the whole of Zen in its doing.
