The Practice of Refuge; Community Nights
beginning this Monday, Feb. 12
6:00 PM, Shove Chapel
Dear Sangha,
Starting this Monday, we’ll be refreshing our practice of precepts recitation in community.
As part of this winter’s practice period, we’ve been looking at a number of aspects of this Zen way of practice of a life. We’ve looked at sutra study, koans of course, meditation, sutra service, and action arising from our core bodhisattva vow. Now we’ll take up the practice of taking refuge in the Bodhisattva Way.
On the second Monday of each month we sit for one period, recite our ten Bodhisattva Vows, and then share tea, cookies and discussion. This format will continue, just the same; but this Monday, we’ll begin a series of discussions to delve a little deeper into the core practice of taking refuge in the Bodhisattva Way. Our monthly shared recitation and discussion of these vows is the communal part of this practice, which is central to Zen life as we understand it in our Open Source tradition.
To kick off the series, I will speak briefly about the practice of taking refuge in awakening, the way and our companions, and how this unfurls into our root vows and our koan way of working with precepts. Then I’ll open the floor and we’ll share our own experiences and questions.
We hope you’ll join in. It’s a come as you are affair, not about any perfection or advancement but just about being humans together in challenging times.
The series will continue on community nights, going forward.
Hoping you are warm and cozy on this evening, so beautifully snowy, as I look out to the lavender-pinky light of dusk,
Sarah Bender