Dear Lab/Shul,
I hear it all the time — High Holy Day prayers, how can they possibly support me in the real world? What if this year, instead of grasping, you found yourself receiving. Here, take my hand and join me for Selichot: our sacred time before the New Year where the gates are already opening.
Register for Selichot: Sit & Sorry
One day this past year, sitting in the classroom of the New York Zen Center where I was a student of the year-long course, Foundations in Contemplative Care, I listened as the Senseis asked each of us to find a partner and look them in the eye.
The first question they told us to ask each other was: “What is your true nature?”
In one lesson after another we were learning that our true nature is interconnection—the profound realization that I am you. It is raw compassion, the understanding that all of us out here are companions in this world, moving together through a shared suffering, pain, hope, and joy.
And then came the follow-up question, the one we were to ask each other again and again to let the answers unfold: “How do you separate from yourself?”
It was a prompt to notice the stories we tell of the illusion that I am not you. Because the truth is, the moment I forget that I am connected to you, I have separated from my own true self, too.
This profound reminder is our onboarding for the upcoming High Holy Day season a Holy Shift we’re invited into to notice where we’ve separated from ourselves, from one another, from our own true nature and to find our way back into our true nature of connection..
Selichot is our collective reminder that, like every seed you ever did meet, we were born to grow.
This is my personal invitation to join us, alongside our beloved siblings and teachers, Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison and Sensei Robert Chodo Campbell, for Sit & Sorry—our collaborative, intimate exploration of this ritual practice.
With an open heart,
Shira Kline
Co-Founder and Spiritual Leader
