All times listed below are Mountain Time
Overview of November Offerings
Saturday, November 5, 8 AM: Zoom: Zen Threads Talk, Sarah Bender, Roshi
Saturday, November 5, 3 PM, Hybrid: All Sangha Meeting
Sunday, November 6, 3 PM, Hybrid: Koan Series
Monday, November 7, 6 PM, Zoom: Meditation and Sutra Service
Sunday, November 13, 3 PM, Hybrid: Koan Series
Monday, November 14, 6 PM: Hybrid: Community Night: Meditation and Precepts Conversation
Sunday, November 20, 3 PM, Hybrid: Koan Series
Monday, November 21, 6 PM: Dharma Talk, Sarah Bender, Roshi
Monday, November 28, 6 PM: Koan Exploration, Sarah Bender, Roshi
Thursday, December 1, 7 PM: Zoom: Movie Night – The Conspiracy, Third Party Films
DETAILS OF SOME OF THESE EVENTS BELOW, PLEASE READ THROUGH “MANY ARMS OF GUANYIN!”
Ongoing Meditation Schedule
Sundays: Candlelight Meditation 8 to 8:30 PM
Mondays: Meditation and evening starting at 6:00 PM
On Mondays you can also join at 6:25 or 6:55
Wednesdays: Morning meditation 6:30-7:30 AM
Saturdays: Morning Meditation 6:30-8:00 AM, discussion 8-8:30 AM
Most Saturday mornings, a sangha member will kick off a discussion with a brief talk, pertaining to their own experience of practice right now. These conversations are rich and real!
Additional Early Morning Meditations
A simple, early morning sit is offered on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, 6:30-7:30 AM. There will be no designated leader, but the Zoom Zendo will be open and available for those who would like to join. Please leave your camera off while the meditation is in progress.
Upcoming Events
All Sangha Meeting
All Those Hands!
All Sangha Meeting
3:00 PM, Saturday, November 5, 2022
You are welcome to attend in person at Creek Bend,
7528 Jenkin Place in Colorado Springs,
or online.
Dear Sangha,
Once a year we get together to do the official work of the sangha as a whole, which is pretty straightforward: we approve a budget for the next year, and we approve the membership of the sangha’s steering committee for the coming year. So, that’s the protein-of-your-choice and potatoes of the meal. Essential, to fulfill the duties set out in our bylaws, and important, too, for us to be a functioning organization. We’ll also briefly review the few plans that are already built into our coming year.
But the veggies, the condiments, the libations, and the dessert of the meal, at least as important for the health of our spiritual family, are the topics we hold in conversation. For instance:
What offerings or kinds of support are most important to you, in your practice of a life?
What have you noticed has had a powerful effect on you?
What have you most enjoyed?
What would you like more of, or less of?
How can we do a better job of letting people know that we exist?
What events are best held online so people near and far can participate similarly? What ones might best be hybrid? What ones want to be in-person only?
We have set aside three hours for this meeting, but our sense is that we can accomplish most of what’s needed in two….and three is long for an online meeting.
So, please join us, and plan on two hours but know that a third hour is included for the continuation of important conversations and for time to just catch up with each other a bit, get to know each other a little better, share dreams for the life of the sangha…..like that.
It’s been surprising and delightful, each year, to hear the thoughts of community members, the creative ideas, the practical suggestions…and the glimpses of our lives.
So, please come if you can! You are needed, and what we do matters!
Sincerely,
Your Steering Committee
Koans:
“How do we save the beings of the world?” “We include them.”
“In the morning, we rub shoulders. In the evening, we entangle eyebrows.”
“Taking the form of Guanyin, find shelter for the homeless person.”
Winter Koan Series
Sundays 3-5 PM Hybrid Zoom and In Person
November 6, 13, 20 and December 4 and 17th
(Note the final session will be Saturday)
Please join us for our weekly koan series starting this weekend. We will gather for meditation and reflection about koans chosen by our teacher, Sarah Bender, Roshi. Share your insights, questions and what arises as you allow the koan to companion you and you companion it. If you would like to receive emails for this series, please email Sarah at sembender@gmail.com.
The suggested donation for this series is $10 per session and that dana via check can go directly to Sarah.
Sarah Bender
7528 Jenkin Place
Colorado Springs, CO 80919
As is true for all of our offerings, no one will be turned away due to financial considerations.
Movie Night
Thursday, December 1st at 7 PM on Zoom
The Conspiracy, for which Sarah’s son, Joe, is cinematographer, will be available for screening Nov. 18 to 27. Tickets are available for purchase now.
Here’s the link: https://www.docnyc.net/film/the-conspiracy/
Here’s a blurb about the film:
WORLD PREMIERE It’s an insidious, centuries-old conspiracy theory that continues to rear its ugly head today: Jews have a secret international plot to control the world. How do such preposterous ideas get started, and why do they flourish? Filmmaker Maxim Pozdorovkin orchestrates bold, striking animation and exceptionally talented voice artists to walk us through almost 250 years of anti-Semitic ideology, focusing on how times of uncertainty give rise to anxieties in marginalized populations, and how three Jewish family dynasties came to bear the brunt of irrational scapegoating. – Jaie Laplante
Open Source Email List
If you’d like to join the info/discussion group for Open Source (which is a place for you to offer your insights, spark discussions, etc. as well as receiving notices) just email the address below with your name and email address.
opensourcezen+subscribe@groups.io
AND, LOOKING AHEAD
Movie Night, Thursday, February 23 on Zoom, 7 PM
Have a movie you’d like to propose? We watch them beforehand at our leisure, and then meet to discuss.
Work in the Room
Work in the Room by telephone or Zoom can be arranged with Andrew Palmer, Sensei at alpalmer128@gmail.com or with Sarah Bender, Roshi at sembender@gmail.com. Work in the Room is a close encounter of the sacred/ordinary kind—an encounter among you, a teacher, and the great matter that is most deeply real for you right now—and what clearly matters because it shows up in a conversation about the Way, whether, on the face of it, it seems sacred or ordinary. No special undertaking is required.
Newsletter Additions
Do you have artwork, a poem or a volunteer story to share in our newsletter? If so, please send them to Kelly McFarland at s.Kelly.HLS@gmail.com.
Many Arms of Guanyin
This month, we vote! One of the most important things we can do with our hands and eyes in this time, in this country.
Make Yr Vote a Prayer
Joan Sutherland
All Saints’ Day, 2022
O, let America be America again —
the land that never has been yet —
and yet must be
~ Langston Hughes
America can feel like a series of collisions between aspiration and actuality. Formed by centuries of yearning, betrayal, epic successes, and epic failures : a communal dreaming by a circle of unruly dreamers. Sometimes America’s initiation into maturity seems an unbearably slow and costly ceremony, but now that it’s under such assault, I find a deep desire to protect the ceremony, and its chance of continuing.
Vote what you love and what has loved you … Vote what you believe in, vote what you don’t believe in anymore so it can find its way back to you … Vote the drowning lands and the burning lands and all the running swimming flying rooted creatures living now on the precipice of extinction, who have no vote except yrs.
Vote yr broken, fierce heart.
Volunteer with SMS
Are you interested in volunteering to help with a specific project within the sangha? Do you have a particular skill or enthusiasm for something that might be helpful? Would you like to help out, but not sure how? SMS truly values and depends on the many efforts given freely by the sangha to the sangha. This is dana and is so much appreciated. If you have questions or want to help, please contact Kelly McFarland S.Kelly.HLS@gmail.com.
About Dana
During these times when we cannot meet in person, you can donate to Springs Mountain Sangha through our PayPal account. You can get to the SMS PayPal link on the SMS web site at:
https://www.smszen.org/supportsms/
You can also mail donations to Springs Mountain Sangha, P.O. Box 2613, Colorado Springs, CO 80903.
We depend on the generosity of our members to support the work of our sangha.If you want to make a donation to Sarah Bender specifically, for example, dana for classes, group meetings or work on the phone (suggested donations for these are $10 per class, or $20 for a 20 min. individual meeting) you can do this by sending a check directly to her.
Sarah Bender
7528 Jenkin Place
Colorado Springs, CO 80919
Support for Cloud Dragon
An easy way to support Cloud Dragon, the Joan Sutherland Dharma WorksAmazon shoppers, sign in at smile.amazon.com and choose Cloud Dragon Dharma Works as the charity you would like 0.5% of your purchases to go to. It costs you nothing extra. We’re grateful for your generosity.
See also Joan Sutherland’s Patreon site,
https://www.patreon.com/posts/do-you-trust-yr-31567633
This is another good way to support Joan’s work and receive fresh teachings from her.