![](\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-Eog_D50WiDk\/ThMiYlglvlI\/AAAAAAAAD6g\/FsD8RDsaRlU\/s400\/Zen+ordination+1970.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/div>\nForty-one years ago, on this day in 1970 along with five other young aspirants to the great Zen way I was ordained unsui, literally a person of clouds and water. <\/p>\n
My training career to this date was brief, although increasingly intense.<\/p>\n
It would lay the foundation for the rest of my life.<\/p>\n
And I remain eternally grateful to my preceptor, the Venerable Houn Jiyu Kennett.<\/p>\n
Forty-one years\u2026<\/p>\n
A while back a friend from those days sent me a photograph of the ordinands on that day. I am in the middle row, perhaps appropriately, on the far left. <\/p>\n
I look at the face of that boy and I have no idea who he was. Fortunately this morning while shaving I looked into the mirror and realized I have no idea who that person is, either.<\/p>\n
The training continues.<\/p>\n
One continuous mistake\u2026<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/div>\n
![](\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-Eog_D50WiDk\/ThMiYlglvlI\/AAAAAAAAD6g\/FsD8RDsaRlU\/s1600\/Zen+ordination+1970.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n