Dojo Outreach: HPM Leadership Retreat, by Mike Fujimoto
Chozen-ji continues to offer shugyo in many forms. This year, we also began working with new communities across Hawaii, providing entry points to Chozen-ji training they might not otherwise encounter. Read on for accounts from those who organized this outreach.
HPM Leadership Team at Chozen-ji.
By Mike Fujimoto, Chairman, President & CEO of HPM Building Supply
After participating in our HPM team’s weekend retreat at Chozen-ji, I have developed a renewed sense of hope and optimism for the future of humanity.
First of all, our team—some which approached the weekend with skepticism and doubt about what the Chozen-ji experience was all about—was unanimously and positively impacted on both personal and professional levels. I sense that the experience of quieting the mind and deepening the spirit through zazen, taichi, calligraphy, archery and kendo training were both profoundly different from what most have ever experienced and invigorating in a primal and spiritual way. As a result, I believe our team is more aligned today with themselves and with each other in spirit and intent than before the weekend. Some continue to practice zazen.
Secondly, I was most impressed by the relatively young Chozen-ji leaders who have chosen to dedicate themselves to forwarding the values and teachings of Chozen-ji’s founder, Tanouye Rotaishi, and Abbot Sayama Roshi. Their devotion and dedication to a life practice of mindfulness, kindness and courage at this stage in their lives, especially given the many distractions of this era, are clear and present indications that this emerging generation has the leadership and vision needed to move our communities in the right direction both in mind and spirit.
I remain hopeful, inspired and grateful.