Evening Schedule

Our Spring practice theme is the wilderness-as-teacher (via Gary Snyder’s writings).

Wilderness, as he defines it in The Practice of the Wild, “is a place where the wild potential is fully expressed, a diversity of living and nonliving beings flourishing according to their own sorts of order” (12).

If the wilderness were made one’s temple, and so “the wild” a teacher, what does practice look like?

Gary Snyder writes:

“For those who would seek directly, by entering the primary temple, the wilderness can be a ferocious teacher, rapidly stripping down the inexperienced or the careless…. Practically speaking, a life that is vowed to simplicity, appropriate boldness, good humor, gratitude, unstinting work and play, and lots of walking brings us close to the actually existing world and its wholeness” (25).

If our situation distracts us from the wildness of living, the spring will soon make the presence of that wilderness unignorable. There is an order to nature, but an order less inclined to the very human habit of drawing straight lines; an order “where the wild potential is fully expressed, a diversity of living and nonliving beings flourishing according to their own sorts of order” (12). In this season of ignorance and delineation, how might we re-apprentice ourselves to what our environs—our region, our neighbors—have to teach us? May the practice that results extend care well beyond the so-called “borders” of our home.

We will continue to meet both live (in the Multifaith Chapel in Campion) and via Zoom. If you would like to join us on Zoom and are not already on the listserv, please send us a message and you will receive the secure Zoom invitation.

Our program (both live and on Zoom) remains as follows:

7:10 pm: optional Zen training with Daichi for those new to Zen
7:30 PROMPTLY: short welcome and chanting
7:40: Zazen round one
8:00: KINHIN (walking meditation or five-minute break)
8:05: Zazen round two
8:25: Dharma talk
8:35: Chant the four bodhisattva vows