NEW Online Meditation Course

June 13, 2013

Posted by Sharon

Four Noble Truths: Insights and Meditations

In this five-week online course, we will explore the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism through Phillip Moffitt’s book, “Dancing with Life: Buddhist Insights for Finding Meaning and Joy in the Face of Suffering.” The course includes guided required reading of this text and instruction in a variety of mindful meditations that help build compassion and insight. Introductory tuition $25.

You can start the course at ANY time and have immediate access to the first unit upon enrollment. You have five weeks to take the course from the date you start. There is no schedule to keep to or required group activities. Read at your own pace and engage with the videos, worksheets and guided meditations in whatever way is most helpful for you. No grades. No pressure. No requirements.

This course is for you if:

You want to feel less anxiety, stress and depression
You want to learn more about fundamental concepts in Buddhism
You need a flexible program that allows you to work at your convenience
You wish to increase your capacity for compassion

This course is for yoga and meditation students of all levels who want to know more about Buddhism and wish to learn metta meditation techniques to either start or refresh a daily meditation practice. This is an intellectual, personal and shared journey into meditation practices that are inspired by insights related to the Four Noble Truths. These are secular practices that can be incorporated into even the most busy lifestyle.

Dr. Dean Ornish has described the core textbook for this online course as, “…a profound book about the relationship between happiness and suffering. It is filled with wisdom about how to live a more effective and satisfying life. I recommend it for anyone who is struggling with change in their lives.” (From the back cover)

Do you want to improve the quality of your health on your own time, at your own pace and in the comfort of your home, office or local coffee shop or park?

Do you need an affordable meditation program that doesn’t require you to also pay for transportation, childcare, meals and housing?

Are you looking for new inspiration and meaning for your existing practice? Are you a yoga or meditation teacher that wants to incorporate more meditation in your own practice and your teaching?

Do not delay! You will learn simple techniques for relieving stress, tension and anxiety on the very first day of the course—even before you read one word of the core text!

Spring Meditation #1: Faith

March 2, 2011

Posted by Sharon

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Each year, in preparation for spring, I read this book:

Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience
by Sharon Salzberg

In my practice of both Catholicism and Judaism, I always appreciated the statements of belief that come at the beginning of a mass or service. I like the idea of a gathering of people who very clearly state, up front, what joins them together and what they wish to publicly announce as their main practices and beliefs. It’s a very powerful feeling to be a part of that prayer. The ability to state, with such certainty, these statements of belief that provide the foundations that both define the religion and the basis of the prayers and practices of that religion, requires faith. By repeating these statements, and especially by repeating them as a group, they provide a significant structure of support for those beliefs and practices. But, it isn’t belief that brings that group together. It is faith.

This book by Sharon Salzberg is a profound exploration of what faith is and how it continues to work as a powerful force even when we feel that we have lost it. Although it is written from a Buddhist perspective, or, at the very least, the perspective of a Buddhist, the ideas can be applied to the human condition in general and are not specific to any particular religious practice. Perhaps, a Buddhist exploration of the idea of Faith can be so open precisely because questioning is an important part of Buddhism. Practitioners are told not just to believe, but that they should practice and see what the reality of their own experience is. Not only are you not going to hell for asking the question, but questioning is an integral part of the faith and practice.

Why this book? Why spring?

First, I learned this concept of re-reading certain books at certain times of the year from my mother. Each December, she would sob her way through the New York City subway system reading Charles Dickens’, Christmas Carol. The first time I read Faith it was in the fall and I was drawn to re-read it that spring. It has become my “spring book” and this ritual is part of my spiritual preparation at the end of winter, when I just can’t take one more minute of cold or darkness, to remember that the seeds of spring have been cradled and nurtured deep within the earth the whole time.

Second, I learned to see that our biggest and smallest choices in life reflect our faith on a daily basis from my father. At a speech he gave at my first wedding rehearsal dinner, he expressed the idea that the act of getting married is one that reflects our ability to have hope and faith. If we didn’t feel like we could carry love into the future, we wouldn’t do it. Even with the awareness that marriages fail, the act of getting married reflects a faith that it is also possible that some will not fail. Our ability to have faith in our relationships, even while knowing that the people we love and that love us the most are not perfect and can’t be loving all the time is a spiritual practice. This preparation for spring and considering the role of faith in my relationships, my work, my family and in my own choices is an important ritual that, just as powerful as a statement of belief, helps me to re-gather my spirit after a time of darkness.

Third, the truth is that I start to lose it by the end of winter. The kind of “losing it” that requires more than a new lipstick to feel better. Reading this book on faith reminds me that the seeds of spring have been cradled deep in the earth all winter long. It is only my inability to see the life and to focus only on what is not living that causes my discomfort and un-ease. Within the ground, not even that deep, lie the bulbs we planted this last fall. They are happy and safe in the darkness of the earth, resting all their forces for the burst of life that will come when they feel the sun start to warm the surface. And this, of course, is a wonderful reminder that I can choose my focus and my perspective at any time, in any season and apply this lesson of spring to all the winters of my life.

Zen Sitting Group of Pittsburgh

May 24, 2010

Posted by Sharon

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Hogen Green has recently posted the new sitting schedule for the ZSGP. Everyone is invited to sit with this group that meets by donation at Yoga Matrika in the Peace Room on some Sunday mornings and Tuesday evenings. The Zen Sitting Group of Pittsburgh has been very generous to Yoga Matrika and it is their beautiful Buddha that creates a sanctuary out of the Peace Room. If you are interested in Zen, I encourage you to contact Hogen directly. He provides orientations for those in the community who are new to Zen if you let him know ahead of the meeting that you are coming and require this introduction.

Here is the focus for the next group of sittings as communicated by Hogen in his most recent e-mail to the group:

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.

Here is our schedule for the next weeks:

Tuesday evening May 25th 6:30 zazen

Sunday morning May 30th 9:30 AM, zazen, liturgy and senior’s talk

Tuesday evening June 8th, 6:30PM zazen

Sunday morning June 13th, 9:30 AM zazen liturgy

Tuesday evening June 22d 6:30PM zazen, liturgy

Sunday morning June 27th 9:30 AM, zazen, liturgy and senior’s talk

I hope to see you in the zendo and sit with you in sharing the Dharma.

Sunday Spring Schedule (9:30 to 11:30 am):

May 30
June 13
June 27

Tuesday Evening Schedule (6:30 pm):

May 25th
June 8
June 22

You can read more about the Zen Sitting Group of Pittsburgh and obtain contact information for the group’s leader, Hogen Green, on the Yoga Matrika website:

https://www.yogamatrika.com//contact-us/zen-sitting-group/

Posted by Sharon Fennimore Rudyk, Owner and Director of Yoga Matrika. Yoga Matrika is located in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of the City of Pittsburgh.

Hello There

Zen Sitting Group of Pittsburgh

September 19, 2009

Posted by Sharon

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Update 4/16/12:
Please note that the Zen Sitting Group of Pittsburgh no longer exists as the leader has moved away from Pittsburgh. This is an older post from 2009.

The Zen Sitting Group of Pittsburgh (ZSGP) meets at Yoga Matrika on alternate Sundays. Please see the schedule and more information about ZSGP 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. No one is turned away for lack of ability to donate. All donations are used to cover the cost of the use of the sitting space.

Sitting Schedule

We meet on alternating Sundays starting from 9:30 AM-11:30AM at Yoga Matrika located at 6520 Wilkins Avenue in Squirrel Hill (closest intersection is Beechwood and Wilkins and the space is next to WHEEL DELIVER) for zazen and a liturgy service. On the second Sunday of each month there will also be a senior’s talk by the group leader, Hogen Green. These talks on the Dharma will focus primarily on the relationship of Zen practice to daily life.

Autumn Schedule:

Sunday August 23: Liturgy, Zazen, Senior’s talk By Ron Hogen Green
Sunday, September 6: Liturgy, Zazen
Sunday, September 20: Liturgy, Zazen, Senior’s Talk
Sunday, October 4: Liturgy, Zazen
Sunday, October 18: Liturgy, Zazen, Senior’s Talk
Sunday, November 8: Liturgy, Zazen
Sunday, November 15: Liturgy, Zazen
Sunday, November 29: Liturgy, Zazen, Senior’s Talk

The group’s leader, Ron Hogen Green, MRO, is a senior lay student of John Daido Loori Roshi, abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery. Hogen studied Zen with Roshi Philip Kapleau between 1978 and 1991, then became a student of Daido Roshi in the Mountains and Rivers Order that same year. Hogen was in full-time residential training at Zen Mountain Monastery from 1995 until 2007, serving as a senior monastic. He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife Cindy Eiho Green.

Contact the Zen Sitting Group of Pittsbugh:

Ron Hogen Green

Hogen@dharma.net

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