Taizan Maezumi Roshi, the great teacher who migrated from Japan to the United States in the 1950s to help plant Zen in our cultural soil, died 26 years ago. The White Plum Asanga–the affiliate group of all teachers succeeding from him–introduced an annual remembrance ceremony for him last year, which I attended. This year’s ceremony, which I also attended, was recorded. I counted 112 teachers–the vast majority of us–in attendance.

If you would like to sense the flavor of the broader–and broad, like the Way, it is!–WPA, this is a fine place to start. The rap remembrance by Roshi Gerry Shishin Wick, one of Maezumi Roshi’s direct Dharma heirs, is delicious, and the principal talk, given by Roshi Wendy Egyoku Nakao, one of Roshi Bernie Glassman’s Dharma heirs, who was the longstanding abbot of the Zen Center of Los Angeles, which Maezumi Roshi founded, is nourishingly bittersweet.

The ceremony included a video montage of moments from Maezumi Roshi’s life, which also has been posted separately.