Recurrent
7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
“What does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion do with so many hands and eyes?”
“Does an awakened person fall into cause and effect?”
“How do you stop the war?”
Koans are short Zen dialogues that open inquiry into the heart of practice and awakening. When the Zen tradition holds up a story, saying or inquiry as a koan, it’s asking for our deep respect, “a long loving look at the real,” an invitation to enter into dialogue with something inconceivable about our lives. Koans are boundlessly open to exploration and unfolding. Right where a koan is elusive and ungraspable is a door to something elusive, ungraspable, and also liberating, right here.
How do we befriend a koan? Each week, a koan will be offered to read, memorize and carry with you through your daily activities. In class, we will learn more about the koan and enter into open-ended dialogue. This conversation is the core of the class. Koans arise from dynamic dialogue and intimate conversation is where they thrive, turn over, shimmer, kick, shout, whisper, smile and roll over for a belly pat.
We will also have a chance to explore, celebrate, turn-over, criticize and liberate the koan by composing our own poems or short prose responses (which we are invited to share with the class). Together, we can befriend koans by allowing them to take up some space in our bodies, hearts and minds. Koans really start to warm-up when we find ourselves in the koan and the koan opens something in the deepest struggles of our lives.
Dates: Wednesdays – July 8, 15, 22 and 29.
Time: 7:00 PM–8:30 PM ET
Location: Online via Zoom (link will be provided to registrants before the first class.)
Fee: $150-240 sliding scale.
(Find your rate through our Equitable Pricing Model. If this doesn’t work for you, apply for financial assistance. No one will be turned away due to financial constraints).
Registration deadline — July 6, 11:59 PM ET
Financial assistance deadline — June 30, 11:59 PM ET
Questions? Contact us at info@brooklynzen.org.
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: Cover art from Book of Serenity by Thomas Cleary (Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Press) 1990.
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