September 11, 2024
6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Each fall, Brooklyn Zen Center creates a container to help support our community in taking time to clarify our intentions, deepen insight, embody our commitments and more fully integrate our practice as life. Returning to silence in this way strengthens mindfulness and opens the heart.
We call this container a “practice period”. Our Buddhist ancestors created this ritual of bringing wandering monks In India together during the rainy season in order to cultivate sangha. This tradition has continued for the last 2,500 years. Zen practice emphasizes the importance of vow in order to align and support our deepest yearnings. The practice period supports us to return to our deepest vow, especially amidst a lay life that can distract us from this subtle, inner calling.
In our fall 2024 Practice Period, we will focus on the relationship between Zen Practice and ways of healing. We will look at readings from Dr. Paula Arai’s books, Bringing Zen Home and The Little Book of Zen Healing. In both texts Dr. Arai puts forth a model of Yudo, or Way of Healing, and explores how can we engage the practices of Yudo in our contemporary Zen Practice. We will also consider together what do we even mean by healing? What are the spheres in our lives, from the personal and familial, to the communal, collective and even global, l that we may liberate through our Dharma practice together? Learn more about the fall 2024 practice period here. The fall practice period includes making a practice commitment among the many BZC practice offerings.
The Practice Period Opening Ceremony takes place on Wednesday, September 11 from 6:30 PM –8:30 PM EST, at Boundless Mind Temple in Brooklyn. Join us in this celebration of practice and community!
The Practice Period Opening Ceremony will also be live-streamed. For security reasons, we do not post zoom links publicly. If you are subscribed to the BZC Community List and receive the weekly announcements, please find the recurring log in information already in your inbox. Otherwise, please contact us here in advance.
Image: Cover image from Paula Arai, Bringing Zen Home.