December 20, 2014
Springs Mountain Sangha
January 2015 Calendar
Ongoing Events
Newcomer Orientation:
2nd Monday of the month, CC Shove Chapel, Dharma Hall upstairs at 5:45 pm to meet anyone who would like some orientation to meditation, to our tradition, or to our sangha and customs.
Dharma Study and Discussion:
Each Monday 5:15 pm, CC Shove Chapel, Dharma Hall downstairs.
Wayfaring Mind Talk
Monday, December 29 Jacque Minehart
We dearly value the opportunity to hear a member of SMS speak of her/his journey. We do this on the 5th Monday of a month. It is an intimate experience for us to listen and then explore each others wayfaring path…please come
Zen Threads:
January 3rd, Kent Hamblin will give the Zen Threads talk this month at 8:00 am following three periods of meditation. Discussion will follow, and we’ll close with our vows at 8:25, as usual.
Once our nomadic Dharma hall is packed away, all who are interested will go to Wooglins for breakfast and more conversation.
Dharma Talks:
January 19 Sarah Bender, Sensei
January 26 Andrew Palmer, Sensei
Work in the Room:
January 17 Sarah Bender, Sensei.
Steering Committee Meeting: January 7
Contact: Robert King @ kingrh@comcast.net) for updated information
Ongoing Practice of Refuge with Precepts Study:
- 3rd Session led by Sarah Bender, Sensei : December 20, 10 am to noon
- 4th Session led by Andrew Palmer, Sensei: January 10, 10 am to noon:
- 5th Session led by Sarah Bender, Sensei: January 31, 10 am to noon
Center for Inner Peace, Pueblo
It is still possible to join this group of over 20 people, studying and practicing together. If you would like to join in or would like to receive the mailings for this group, please contact David Cockrell, davidcockrell@comcast.net. We take these up together as ethical inquiry, and as vows.
A Simple Sit
When: January 3, 2015
Time: 10:00-3:00
Where: The Woman’s Club at CC, 10 Mesa Road
Every so often, we gather together in community for a day, or part of a day, simply to sit in meditation together, our basic, transformational practice. It’s a “bare bones” retreat. Someone keeps time, and we sit in our regular rhythm, 25 min. of seated meditation, 5 min. of walking meditation. Lunch is brown bag, and we eat together in silence and have some break time, between noon and 1:00 pm. You are welcome to come for all or part of the day, and are invited to bring a short reading to share at the beginning of one of the meditation periods.
There is no fee for this; a dana bowl will be available to receive your contributions to the ongoing life of the sangha, with deep gratitude.
Nice way to begin a year together, don’t you think?
Contact: Liz Cramer elizabeth.cramer51@gmail.com
Winter Koan Series
When: Sundays, January 4,11,18, 25
Time: 3:00-5:00 pm
Where: Creek Bend Zendo
All are welcome! Suggested Donation $10
Contact: sembender@gmail.com
Zen Mind Beginners Mind
by Shunryu Suzuki
a book study
When: January 2, 9,16, 23, 30
Time: 10 to 11:30 am
Where: Becky Myers, 2127 N. Nevada
All are welcome to attend – Please contact Clay Taylor @ bluewildrye@gmail.com
Introduction to Zen Meditation
When: January 31
Time: 9:00 to noon
Where: TBD
Leaders: Mary Montoya and Frank Actis
Looking Ahead
The Sayings of Layman P’ang
translated by James Green
a Winter Dharma Study
When: Feb. 4, 11, 18, 25, March 4, 11
Time: 6:30-8:30 pm
Where: Creek Bend Zendo
Teacher: Sarah Bender, Sensei
This translation has an informative introduction by Jeff Shore, and is a collection of stories and koans involving not only Layman P’ang but also his wife and brilliant daughter. We could spend a good deal more than 6 evenings with this material, and maybe you will; it will serve as powerful and delightful material for our practice. For more information contact Sarah Bender at sembender@gmail.com
And, of course, all are welcome to attend!
An Integrative Retreat with Sarah Bender, Sensei
When: February 20-21
Time: 7-9 pm Friday
9:30-4:30 Saturday
Where: The Woman’s Club
For an integrative retreat, we take up together a particular theme or text, moving back and forth between silent meditation and conversation.
This one will be a koan retreat. We’ll take up one koan, and spend an extended time with it, together and individually.
No previous experience with koans is required. What’s a koan? Joan Sutherland’s description of koans as “shards of the light” may seem abstract, but captures something important about them. Although koan may translate as”public case”, we might ask, “public case of what?” I can hear a teenaged daughter saying to her friend, “You’re a public case.” True enough. What’s a poem, after all? What’s art? What is beautiful? YOu kind of have to find out, don’t you? We might also say that a koan is a love letter sent to us from an ancestor, an invitation to intimacy with “the Great Matter” through a visit with a conversation held long ago.
Does this help? Maybe not so much. It’s best to come and find out.
Contact: Clay Taylor @ bluewildrye@gmail.com
Haiku Class with Robin Izer
Introduction by Andrew Palmer, Sensei
Sponsored by Rocky Mountain Insight and Springs Mountain Sangha
mark your calendars!
When: Saturday, February 28th
TIme: 9:30 -12:30
Where: Rocky Mountain Insight vihara
We are excited to be co-sponsoring this event which will be open to the Pikes Peak Buddhist Community (19 sanghas!) You might enjoy reading A Zen Wave: Basho’s Haiku and Zen, by Robert Aitken, Roshi in preparation for this event.
Spaces are limited although we hope to accommodate everyone.
Contact: Liz Cramer @ elizabeth.cramer51@gmail.com
In her letter to the Awakened Life community, Our Founding Teacher, Joan Sutherland, Roshi, included a poem by Wallace Stevens that is dear to many of us: The Mind of Winter.
We are passing it along by including it here, with a reminder that, if you become a member of Awakened Life, you’ll also receive recorded talks from Joan each month.
We are most grateful for the way own, in spite of her illness, continues to support our awakening.
Dear Bodhisattvas,
“One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind.
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow.
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.”
Wallace Stevens