Rebecca Museidō Hawes
To my Sangha I bow in gratitude for your support and love as I pass through another gateless Dharma Entrance Gate. As a new Unsui (novice priest) in the White Plum Asanga, I bow to my ordaining teacher Rev. Roshi Ed Sangetsu, Oshō. As a Sensei, I continue to bow to my transmitting teacher, Bob Jingen, Sensei. To my family, my dharma siblings, my friends, the stream of ancestors and the numberless creations – I bow.
While the ceremony Shukke Tokudo traditionally means “home leaving,” I remind everyone that you are still stuck with me at One Heart Sangha. I am neither arriving nor going anywhere.
The priest name 恵門,（Emon）[é-mon], was chosen for me by Rev. Roshi Ed Sangetsu, Oshō and Rev. Sensei Jon Seichō (清調) McCollum, Oshō. In the ceremony Sangetsu Roshi explained that the name is meant, “…to honor the thread of listening and service that has woven through her life from its earliest moments. It means, “the gate through which grace enters the world.” Even as a two-year-old dreaming of becoming a “flying nun,” she carried an impulse to be helpful to others—a drive that later expressed itself in social work, research, and countless acts of care. Zen practice allowed her to recognize that the Bodhisattva vows were not distant ideals but the very path she had been living all along, guided by Avalokitesvara’s example of responding to the cries of the world. Over time, Museidō came to understand that she could never have enough “heads or arms” to hear and save all beings, yet that realization did not lessen her practice; rather, it revealed that hearing and doing are not personal achievements, but boundless gifts arising in each moment. 恵 (grace) reflects this sense of receiving and giving without self-aggrandizement, while 門 (gate) honors her openness, deep attentiveness, the quality that has shaped her life, her Zen practice, and her aspiration to serve as an unsui and, ultimately, as an interfaith chaplain.”
