Ron Hogen Green | Paper Clay Nature

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

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/

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