FOR EONS across spiritual, cultural, and religious traditions, people have made offerings in honor of ancestors. It is a critical step before partaking in any ritual or ceremony. In essence, the people, teachings, and the land that have sustained the wisdom tradition are to be honored prior to the activities in which the spiritual community will participate, heal, and transform. Making offerings to ancestors is a wordless expression of devotion to awakening and an acknowledgment of the earth that supports us.
When making offerings, the persons making them also receive what is given. For example, offering water may bring a calm mind, flowers a sense of beauty. Incense helps connect you to the earth, while firelit candles create illumination and symbolize destroying the darkness of ignorance. Inherent in each offering is a simultaneous giving and receiving of these gifts.
Central to the ceremonial life of most, if not all, Buddhist traditions are ritual offerings to ancestors. Food, flowers, water, incense, rice, sweets, tea, sculpted offerings, and other significant items are given to invoke and honor the ancestors of the lineage or school.
At Zen temples and monasteries, it is a daily practice to give gratitude for the inheritance that has sustained the teachings, the sangha, and one’s life. Prior to the opening of the morning sitting and service, offerings of incense or flowers are made at various altars throughout the temple and temple grounds. This is done just before dawn while the aspirants are seated in silence. Commonly the teacher makes offerings on their behalf, and this is the reason it is important to arrive early to the zendo. The heart of the teacher, the
