Zen Sitting Group of Pittsburgh
The Zen Sitting Group of Pittsburgh meets on the grounds of The Western Pennsylvania Family Center at 733 N.Highland Ave at the Carriage House in the back of the main building.
Everyone is welcome. If you are new to Zen sitting practices, please call Ron Hogen Green to arrange for an orientation/introduction to the practice. He can be reached at (412) 400-7098. More information about the group and Ron Hogen Green are provided below.
What is ZSGP? What is Zen practice? Who can participate?
The Zen Sitting Group of Pittsburgh (ZSGP) is a member of the Society of Mountains and Rivers (SMR), a network of Zen Buddhist sitting groups and affiliates of the Mountains and Rivers Order (MRO). The MRO’s spiritual founder and director is John Daido Loori Roshi, abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery in upstate New York. WWW.MRO.ORG
Zen practice can help us to wake up to who we are and to live out of that understanding. The questions that we take up during the course of our practice are the questions of our human existence: What is life? What is death? How can we truly be alive and live and die in a way that is real and fulfilling?
The door of ZSGP is open to anyone wanting to enter deeply into these questions. Newcomers and experienced practitioners are welcome. Beginning instruction in zazen (sitting meditation) will be offered at each sitting for those attending ZSGP for the first time. If you are attending the ZSGP for the first time, please call head to arrange beginning instruction on your visit.
Suggested Donation is $5. All donations are used to cover the cost of the use of the sitting space.
Sitting Schedule
We meet for zazen, liturgy and talks on the Dharma every other Thursday evening and every other Sunday morning.
Sunday Jan 22, 9:30 AM, liturgy, zazen, interview with Hogen, Senior’s talk
Thursday Jan 26,6:30 PM, zazen
Sunday: Feb 5, 9:30 AM, liturgy, zazen, interview with Hogen, Senior’s talk
Thursday Feb 9,6:30 PM, zazen
Sunday Feb 19, 9:30 AM liturgy, zazen, interview with Hogen, Senior’s talk
Thursday Feb 23, 6:30 PM, zazen
Sunday March 4, 9:30 AM liturgy, zazen, interview with Hogen, Senior’s talk
Thursday March 8, 6:30 PM, zazen
Sunday March 18, 9:30 AM liturgy, zazen, interview with Hogen, Senior’s talk
Thursday March 22, 6:30 PM, zazen
Sunday April 1, 9:30 AM liturgy, zazen, interview with Hogen, Senior’s talk
Thursday April 5th: cancelled
Sunday April 15, 9:30 AM liturgy, zazen, interview with Hogen, Senior’s talk
Thursday, April 19, 6:30 PM, zazen
Sunday April 29th, 9:30AM liturgy, zazen, interview with Hogen, Senior’s talk
The Bodhisattva is the model of practice in Mahayana Buddhism, and our model of how to live a life in the midst of the turmoil and challenges we face both in personal relationships, the life and death of those we know intimately as well our own death, and the catastrophes we see and feel in the larger perspective of this world.
At then end of each sitting together, we take the Four Bodhisattva Vows:
Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them
Desires are inexhaustable, I vow to put an end to them.
The Dharmas are boundless, I vow to master them,
The buddha way is unattainable, I vow to attain it.
We chant these vows 3 times.
This is not a casual chant we do. Taking a vow, these vows, sitting after sitting is transformative. Can be transformative if we begin to make a connection between how we live in response to the challenge of our life, and what these vows are poinying at. Transformation is the point of Zen practice. But transforming what, from what to what? And how does this happen? How does our life actually change in a way that helps our self and others?
Over the next several months, I’ll be giving a series of monthly talks on the path of the Bodhisattva. We will look at that path from the perspective of Vow, from that of the Prajna Paramita Sutra- the Heart Sutra as well as from the perspectives of what the great teachers of our tradition have offered. I invite you to make a special effort to attend both the scheduled talks and the sittings so that the words of the talks and the experience of investigating the Bodhisattva path can be given life: your life. I would encourage you to deeply question what is said in these talks and if it is helpful, to bring these questions up for exploration.
The group’s leader, Ron Hogen Green, MRO, is a senior lay student of Geoffrey Shugen Arnold Sensei, head of the Mountains and Rivers Order. Hogen studied Zen with Roshi Philip Kapleau between 1978 and 1991, then became a student of the Mountains and Rivers Order in 1991, studying with John Daido Loori Roshi until his death in 2009. Hogen was in full-time residential training at Zen Mountain Monastery from 1995 until 2007, serving as a senior monastic. He is a Dharma Holder in the Mountains and Rivers Order and lives in Pittsburgh with his wife Cindy Eiho Green.
Contact the Zen Sitting Group of Pittsburgh:
Ron Hogen Green
Tel. (412) 421-5176
Resources
Training in the MRO: http://www.mro.org/zmm/training/
Lay and monastic training in one of the West’s most established Zen Buddhist lineages
Meditation Instruction: http://www.mro.org/zmm/teachings/meditation.php
Clear, simple instructions in zazen (sitting meditation), the core of all Zen Buddhist practice
Retreats and Programs At Zen Mountain Monastery: http://www.mro.org/zmm/retreats/
Register online for weekend introductory retreats, week-long intensives and more
Monastery Store: http://www.dharma.net/monstore/
The Monastery Store is the online catalog of Dharma Communications, offering meditation supplies in the form of sitting cushions, books, audio and audio-visual teachings and altar supplies. The Monastery Store mission is to support home practice.
Mountain Record: The Zen Practitioners’ Journal is a quarterly published by Dharma Communications http://www.mro.org/mr/mountainrecord.html
For the last twenty-seven years, Mountain Record has offered powerful teachings of realized Buddhism from masters East and West, past and present, as well as essays, poetry, media reviews and art.
WZEN Web Radio: http://www.wzen.org/
WZEN is an original webcast produced at Zen Mountain Monastery, including discourses by Abbot John Daido Loori, Roshi, and talks by the teachers of the MRO, as well as a diversity of other programming relating to a life of spiritual practice.
Dharma Communications: http://www.dharma.net/
The educational outreach arm of the MRO, DC presents Zen teachings in a range of media
Begging Bowl
The Pittsburgh Zen Sitting Group has need for the following items which are available from The Monastery Store: http://www.Dharma.net/monstore
