Recurrent
7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
In this four-part online class series, we will consider together how to create and hold space for healing rituals in our homes, practice centers, and communities. What makes ceremony and ritual healing, both generally and in the context of Zen Buddhist practice?
Led by Dr. Paula Arai, Rev. Duncan Ryuken Williams, alongside BZC Dharma Teachers, Sarah Dōjin Emerson, and Charlie Korin Pokorny. we will explore together the fundamental elements of healing rituals and ceremonies, and expressions of these both in Zen history and tradition, as well as contemporary examples. We will consider the creative and collaborative aspects of healing ceremonies in community, how they relate to our own lives of practice and sanghas, as well as how they can be a part of our shared response to suffering in our communities and society.
This online series is paired with and will lead into an in-person 3-day retreat, Creating Zen Healing Rituals Together, led by Dr Arai and Dojin Sarah Emerson at the Brooklyn Zen Center, June 12–14, 2026. (Stay tuned for more details on the retreat component!)
Dates: May 7, 14, 21, 28, 2026
Time: 7:00 PM–8:30 PM ET
Location: Online via Zoom (link will be provided to registrants before the first class.)
5/7 Class 1- The Ten Healing Principles with Dr Paula Arai
5/14 Class 2- Buddhist Healing Ceremonies and Monuments with Rev Duncan Ryuken Williams
5/21 Class 3- Principles of Rituals and Healing Ceremonies in Zen with Rev Charlie Korin Pokorny
5/28 Class 4- Practices of Creating Healing Rituals with Rev Sarah Dojin Emerson
Registration deadline — May 5, 11:59 PM ET
Financial assistance deadline — April 30, 11:59 PM ET
Fee — $150-$240
Questions? If you have any questions or concerns about registration, please contact us at info@brooklynzen.org.
Paula Arai was raised in Detroit by a Japanese mother and did Zen training in Japan. She obtained her Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from Harvard University in 1993 and is now the Eshinni & Kakushinni Professor of Women and Buddhist Studies at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, California. She is the author of Bringing Zen Home: The Healing Heart of Japanese Women’s Rituals, Women Living Zen: Japanese Soto Buddhist Nuns, and Painting Enlightenment: Healing Visions of the Heart Sutra.
Duncan Ryuken Williams is currently the Alton Brooks Professor of Religion and the Director of the Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture at the University of Southern California. Previously, he held the Ito Distinguished Chair of Japanese Buddhism at UC Berkeley and served as the Director of Berkeley’s Center for Japanese Studies. He has also been ordained since 1993 as a Buddhist priest in the Soto Zen tradition, served as the Buddhist chaplain at Harvard University where he received his Ph.D., and received Dharma transmission in 2024 at Kotakuji Temple in Nagano, Japan. Williams’ latest book, American Sutra: A Story of Faith and Freedom in the Second World War (Harvard University Press) is the winner of the 2022 Grawemeyer Religion Award and a LA Times bestseller. Williams is also the author of The Other Side of Zen (Princeton) and editor of seven volumes including Hapa Japan (Kaya), Issei Buddhism in the Americas (Illinois), American Buddhism (Routledge), and Buddhism and Ecology (Harvard). He serves on the boards of the Yonex Corporation, a Japanese sports equipment company, as well as the Irei Project, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, the Japanese American National Museum, and the Asian Pacific American Religion Research Initiative. He has written op-eds for the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post and served as a consultant for TV shows such as AMC’s “The Terror: Infamy”, Amazon’s “The Man in the High Castle”, and FX’s “Shogun”.
Sarah Dōjin Emerson’s formal practice in Soto Zen began in 1996. She lived and trained at Tassajara Zen Mountain center and other sites of the San Francisco Zen Center from 1997-2007. She received Dharma Transmission from Abbott Konjin Gaelyn Godwin of the Houston Zen Center in 2015. She has a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology from California Institute of Integral Studies, and has worked in the fields of mental health and pastoral care with children and adults. She experiences Bodhisattva Zen practice as deeply supportive to inquiring into, challenging and transforming systems of oppression, particularly racial inequities and the harm they cause within convert Buddhist sanghas, and in U.S. society generally. Sarah has also worked for many years in grief support- clinically, ritually and in community- specializing in child loss. She lives with her partner, Charlie Pokorny (who is also a Soto Zen Buddhist priest), their children (who are her most profound and constant teachers) and numerous pets in Brooklyn, NY.
Charlie Korin Pokorny (he/they) grew up in Hyde Park on the South Side of Chicago. Charlie received a masters in religious studies, focusing on Zen, from Stanford in 1994. He has been teaching graduate courses at the Institute of Buddhist Studies since 2011, including classes on Buddhist thought, history and practice, with a focus on traditions of East Asia and especially Zen. Charlie was ordained as a priest by Reb Anderson in 1999 and received dharma transmission in 2018. He practiced as a resident at Tassajara and Green Gulch Farm and studied koans with Daniel Terragno. Together with his wife, Sarah Dōjin Emerson, they served as head priests at Stone Creek Zen Center 2014-2022. They were then invited to become teachers at the Brooklyn Zen Center and moved with their children to Brooklyn in 2022.
Banner image: A community altar from a Jizo workshop at Green Gulch, care of Sarah Dōjin Emerson
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