Category: Northern Light Zen Center General Interest

The eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth precepts encourage us to show homage to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. This “special honor or respect shown publicly”, as homage can be defined, is of particular significance around this time of year. Each of the three jewels, taken in their broadest sense, points us towards all of creation and our relationships to it and each other. The Northern LIght Zen Center wishes you a joy-filled day with opportunities to be thankful for the Buddha in us all and in all creation.  Join us with thanks! — Northern Light Zen Center

Save the Date!  Kwan Um School of Zen Americas will hold an online Precepts Ceremony in place of our traditional Buddha’s Enlightenment Day gathering on Saturday, December 12, 4 PM EDT. If you would like to take precepts during this ceremony, please visit here to fill out the precepts application. From the same webpage, please download the Precepts Application Handbook and read it carefully before applying. Applicants for 10 precepts should speak with their Guiding Teachers.  Application Deadlines Precepts applications must be submitted by Friday, November 27.  Late applications may be accepted as late as Friday, December 5, but there will be a $25 late fee. No applications will be accepted after December 5.  Questions? Please email: director@kwanumzen.org

If there are any questions regarding Precepts or any ceremony in Kwan Um, please email northernlightzencenter@gmail.com.

Save the Date!  Kwan Um School of Zen Americas announces four Inka Ceremonies to be held online this December. The first ceremony will take place on Saturday, December 5, 4 PM EDT and will include two Inka candidates. The second ceremony will take place on Sunday, December 13, 4 PM EDT. These ceremonies will be held online via Zoom. Additional details about will be provided in the coming weeks. These ceremonies are in addition to a KUSZ Precepts Ceremony scheduled to take place online on Saturday, December 12, 4 PM EDT.

WWSF 2020 Online, Zen Blooms Everywhere begins: 
Sunday, September 6

That’s just a few days away.

For a conference schedule and to register for the conference (required), please visit the conference and registration page here.

WWSF 2020 Online is open to the public, not just Kwan Um sangha members and friends. So please feel free to invite anyone who may be interested to our conference.

Questions? Then please contact us:

Kathy Park at kathysitzen@gmail.com in S. Korea.
Do Wa Sunim at info.wwsf2020my@gmail.com in Malaysia.
Joanna Gruchot at joanna.gruchot@gmail.com in Europe.
Ames Colt at director@kwanumzen.org in the US.

Whole World is a Single Flower Conference 2020

A Mindfulness-based Compassionate Communicate series of four workshops offered by Nancy Hathaway, SDT, State of Maine Licensed (clinical) Pastoral Counselor, Associate Professor University of Southern Maine is open to the Kwan Um School of Zen sangha. (This is not; however, a Kwan Um sponsored event).  

The foundation of this language of compassion is based on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. Mindfulness  is one of the eight of the Eight-fold path, the Fourth of the Four Noble Truths. This language is based on Buddhist psychology.  It is a language of no blame, speaking from truth of experience of the human condition, before judgment, before blame, before making good and bad, or right or wrong. It is the language of wanting all sentient beings to get their basic human needs met, no matter what their situation. Conflict of needs is welcomed. 

The Four Foundations of Mindfulness as well as Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction program will be studied and referred to throughout the series as well as the work of Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of Nonviolent Communication/Authentic Communication and M.K. Ghandi.

Space is limited to 15 for maximum learning. The series will be held via ZOOM. Participants are to send a deposit of $25 or the total fee of $100 to the Paypal account below and an email to Nancy. A waiting list will be available. After registering and paying the full fee, two titles of books will be emailed as optional readings but suggested readings as well as the ZOOM link,

Dates: Tuesday evenings July 28, August 4, 11 & 18 ET (Host is on the coast of Maine USA)
Times: 5-7PM. ET (Host is on the coast of Maine USA)

TO REGISTER:1) Send deposit of $25 or full fee of $100 through Paypal link on Nancy’s website See link below)

Make a Payment Here via PayPal

2) Send email to Hathaway.N@gmail.com with Name and Email address and phone number, preferably TEXT number.  ZOOM Link and optional book list will be emailed to you after full fee has been paid.

Nancy Hathaway became a Senior Dharma Teacher in 1984 while living with her family at Providence Zen Center for five years; two sons born at home at Providence Zen Center. She has studied with Marshall Rosenberg and studied, interned and worked with Jon Kabat-Zinn. This work has informed her relationships with self and other finding this work invaluable and is delighted to share it with others, especially at this time, members of the Kwan Um School of Zen sangha.

“May all of us as a species use this opportunity to wake up to our shared humanity, our shared vulnerability, and to nourish compassion and tolerance, and not our fear and discrimination.” The monks and nuns of Plum Village

Nancy Hathaway, M.Ed., LpastC
207-400-0494
Center for Studying Mindfulness
PO Box 506,
Blue Hill, Maine 04614
www.NancyHathaway.com

Nancy Hathaway offers Mindfulness sessions & trainings to individuals, couples, & groups and is an associate professor of the University of Maine System and a lecturer at Colby College’s JanPlan.

This is a New York Times article that was passed around via email among our Sangha. I thought it was a pretty good read. So I wanted to share it. Check it out.

How the Buddha Got His Face

Northern Light sits via zoom (currently during the pandemic) on Tuesday afternoons at 12:30 for a short meditation session. Also on Wednesday evenings at 6:45 for chanting, two sessions of meditation with a walking meditation in between. If you would like to join us please send an email to northernlightzencenter@gmail.com or abbot@nlzc.info for the zoom meeting information. Be safe and be healthy.

Joshu, a great Chinese Zen master, said, “A clay Buddha cannot cross water; a bronze Buddha cannot get through a furnace; a wooden Buddha cannot get through fire.” Whatever it is, if your practice is directed toward some particular object, such as a clay, a bronze, or a wooden Buddha, it will not always work. So as long as you have some particular goal in your practice, that practice will not help you completely. It may help as long as you are directed towards that goal, but when you resume your everyday life, it will not work.

– Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice

Do you want to improve the world?
I don’t think it can be done.

The world is sacred.
It can’t be improved.
If you tamper with it, you’ll ruin it.
If you treat it like an object, you’ll lose it.

There is a time for being ahead,
a time for being behind;
a time for being in motion,
a time for being at rest;
a time for being vigorous,
a time for being exhausted;
a time for being safe,
a time for being in danger.

The Master sees things as they are,
without trying to control them.
She lets them go their own way,
and resides at the center of the circle.

– Verse 29 of the Tao Te Ching, Translated by Stephen Mitchell

From the Buddhist perspective, every sentient being is acquainted with suffering and the truths of sickness, old age and death. But as human beings, we have the capacity to use our minds to conquer anger and panic and greed. In recent years I have been stressing “emotional disarmament”: to try to see things realistically and clearly, without the confusion of fear or rage. If a problem has a solution, we must work to find it; if it does not, we need not waste time thinking about it.

We Buddhists believe that the entire world is interdependent. That is why I often speak about universal responsibility. The outbreak of this terrible coronavirus has shown that what happens to one person can soon affect every other being. But it also reminds us that a compassionate or constructive act – whether working in hospitals or just observing social distancing – has the potential to help many.

– The Dalai Lama, from https://time.com/5820613/dalai-lama-coronavirus-compassion/

Check out a clip from the Kwan Um Zen Online Study Group, What are you doing right now? 

Clear mind is like the full moon in the sky. Sometimes clouds come and cover it, but the moon is always behind them. Clouds go away, then the moon shines brightly. So don’t worry about clear mind: it is always there. When thinking comes, behind it is clear mind. When thinking goes, there is only clear mind. Thinking comes and goes, comes and goes. You must not be attached to the coming or the going.

From Dropping Ashes on the Buddha