Unless otherwise noted, events are held at Windhorse Hill Retreat Center, 595B River Road, Deerfield, MA.
THE POLITICAL MILIEU AT THE TIME OF THE BUDDHA
Saturday, 7/18
by Rev. Dr. Tom Daijo Redden
9:00 am, immediately following 8:30 Zen Meditation
Second in a series of three talks
The Buddha lived at a time of rapid change. Newfound wealth led to a centralization of economic and political power. The Buddha had close relationships with more than one powerful king, sharing his view on kingship/politics in some detail. The development of the Buddhist Sangha, believed to be the first monastic community in history, represented a creative and practical environment to realize the Dharma. The Buddha’s leadership style was eminently pragmatic and flexible, reflecting a human being dealing with the dozens of mundane aspects of daily life and living at a time of political polarization, corruption, cut-throat competition and structural violence.
POLITICS AND SOCIETY AT THE TIME OF THE BUDDHA
Saturday, 6/20
by Prof. Tom Daijo Redden
9am after 8:30am scheduled meditation
First in series of three talks
Daijo will describe the physical environment of the Buddha’s community (dense and dangerous forests); the intellectual environment (the Buddha’s stiff competition from other ascetic movements, in addition to Brahmanism); the social/economic dynamics (urbanization, a money economy, new technologies), and a growing culture of individualism and materialism. The society in which Buddhism developed was full of complexity, violence, wealth and uncertainty. A very different world?
MINI-RETREAT
May, 9:00 am - 12:00 pm,
led by Roshi Eve Myonen Marko and Sensei Sally Sonen Kealy
9:00 Zen Meditation
9:30 Panic and Pandemic: Talk by Sensei Sonen followed by Q&A
10:30 Zen Meditation
11:00 Zazoom, or Everybody’s Sitting: Talk by RoshiEve followed by Q&A
12:00 Four Vows
Fee: There is no fee for this event. We encourage you to offer generous dana for teachers by using PayPal or by mailing a check to: Green River Zen Center, POB 247, Montague, MA 01351.
Please register: dantikapm@gmail.com or 413-588-8053.
SPRING RETREAT - On hold due to Covid-19
Led by Roshi Eve Myonen MarkoWe will celebrate spring, the time of renewal, new possibilities, and new vows with a retreat beginning on the evening of Thursday, April 16, and continuing until noon on Sunday, April 19. The retreat will include meditation, talks, council practice, liturgy, and face-to-face with Roshi.
The retreat will end with a Lay Preceptor ceremony for Suzanne Shunryo Webber. For that reason, talks at the retreat will focus on the practice of precepts and how it relates to a “Way that is basically perfect and all-pervading . . .a Dharma Body that is free and untrammeled.” If, as Dogen says, there is “no means to brush it clean,” why do we make vows to precepts?
The retreat will begin with a simple supper on Thursday, April 16, at 6:00 pm, will include all three meals on Friday-Saturday, breakfast on Sunday, and refreshments after the ceremony. The daily schedule will start at 7 am and continue till 9 pm, except on Sunday when the retreat will end at noon.
Fee: Members: $180; Non-members: $210. Part-time attendance is possible @$60. for members and $70 for non-members. Scholarships are available; no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
On-site accommodations are available for an extra fee. Other local accommodations are available for free.
Dana will be requested on behalf of Roshi.
Please register by April 9 by contacting Dantika: dantikapm@gmail.com, or call: 413-588-8053.
HOUSEHOLDER KOANS: PORTALS TO OUR INNATE WISDOM
Series of three 2-hour workshops on Thursday evenings at the home of Roshi Eve
1/30, 2/27, 4/2
6:30-8:30 pm
Fee for series: $45.
“Koans demand that we forge into ways of seeing and responding that have nothing to do with analysis, or even reflections, and
everything to do with … a radical acceptance of life as it is…. A life situation becomes a koan when it has jolted you out of your
usual linear way of thinking,... when you no longer think about the situation but instead close the gap between the subject and
the object, between yourself and what you are facing.”
From the Introduction, The Book of Householder Koans: Waking Up In the Land
of Attachments by Wendy Egyoku Nakao and Eve Myonen Marko
Most of us continue to think of practice as something we do seated on a cushion. At the same time, it’s often the situations that challenge and aggravate, grating at our nerves often for years, that become portals to our own innate wisdom. Maintaining an open, spacious mind, we plunge into the very aspect of life (the people, the feelings, the situation) that is most taxing and provoking. We don’t figure anything out, we don’t come up with an answer; with great patience we feel our way, bear witness, befriend.
Don’t be surprised if tenderness emerges, or if your life song suddenly cracks open and soars. It doesn’t have to be big, it can be small. Either way, something unclogs and becomes workable. We will reflect on and write our koans, examine what makes certain stories or situations koans, and create our own commentaries.
Fee: $45 for series (but no one will be excluded for lack of funds).
Please pre-register with Danika: 413-549-9336; or, dantikapm@gmail.com
ZEN DOUBLE FEATURE
Two Part Program to Introduce Zen Practice
Saturday, February 29
Join us for this two-part program to introduce zen meditation and study with a teacher, led by Roshi Eve Myonen Marko, Head Teacher of Green River Zen Center.
In the morning, 9:00 am - 11:30 am, Introduction to Zen Meditation Practice. Instruction for meditation (body, mind and breath), meditation sessions, a brief talk, and Q and A.
In the afternoon,12:30 pm - 3:00 pm, Zen mediation and individual face-to-face meetings with Roshi Eve.
We encourage you, if possible, to participate in the whole day’s retreat, integrating the morning’s teachings with more meditation in the afternoon. Bring a bag lunch if you plan to stay for the afternoon.
Fees: Full day, $35. Morning only, $20. Afternoon only, $15.
Green River Zen is committed to offering meditation instruction regardless of one’s ability to pay. If you don't have the fee, please make whatever donation you could afford.
Why do meditation? Because meditation has been medically documented to reduce stress, improve concentration, and strengthen the immune system. Not to mention that it also brings joy and a sense of wellbeing. This Introduction is appropriate for beginning meditators as well as Buddhist practitioners who wish to learn more about Zen meditation.
You must let us know by Thursday, February 27, that you’re coming. Please register by contacting Dantika: dantikapm@gmail.com, OR: 413-588-8053.
INTENSIVE: DOGEN IN WINTER
During this winter intensive, we will study Dogen, and specifically his fascicle, Uji, or Being-Time. Uji, is one of the more enigmatic and penetrating fascicles in Dogen’s Shobogenzo. While the fascicle is ostensibly about time, Dogen actually addresses some of the most basic points of daily and moment-by-moment Zen practice. He illustrates how the minute we begin to investigate time, we are actually entering the dharma gate of actualizing our own Buddha Nature.
We’ll review our usual sense of sequential time vs. simultaneous time, how being-time encompasses practice, enlightenment, and actualization altogether, and the continuous practice of all beings. We will look at “dharma positions” and how the particular intersects with the whole at every moment.
When we penetrate Dogen, we can’t help but be moved by the vast panorama he opens before our eyes and how infinity flows through us at every moment, whether we realize this or not.
For this reason, an intensive commitment to zazen while studying Dogen is important. Dogen is constantly pulling down our mental frontiers, putting a mirror up to our mind and showing us how stuck we are inside its constructs. The point isn’t to parse out his enigmatic-sounding text but rather maintain an open, unbounded mind in which to hold his teachings. Please join the winter intensive on Tuesday evening, January 14, by making a commitment to more regular and extended sitting practice for the duration of the intensive.
Text for the Winter Intensive: Being-Time: A Practitioner’s Guide to Dogen’s Shobogenzo Uji by Shinshu Roberts
BEGINNERS MIND
Saturday, March 14, 8:30 am-10:00 am
Meditation will begin with basic instruction, followed by a reading of Eihei Dogen’s Fukanzazengiand discussion/Q&A of meditation practice and daily life. Led by Roshi Eve.
GATE OF SWEET NECTAR
Green River Zen Center usually chants the Gate of Sweet Nectar, the Zen Peacemakers’ liturgy feeding all the hungry ghosts, each month on Saturdays at 9:30 am following meditation. The Gate will be chanted on January 18, February 15, and March 21.
COUNCIL PRACTICE
Green River Zen Center does a monthly council practice on the last Tuesday of every month. It will take place this winter on Tuesdays, January 28, February 25, and March 31. Council is a circle practice of listening and speaking from the heart. Its foundation is consonant with the Three Tenets of the Zen Peacemakers: Not-knowing, bearing witness, and loving action.
RENEWAL OF VOWS CEREMONY
A ceremony renewing our vows to the Precepts will take place on or close to the full moon on Tuesdays, January 21 and March 24. All are invited to participate.
THE POLITICAL MILIEU AT THE TIME OF THE BUDDHA
Saturday, 7/18
by Rev. Dr. Tom Daijo Redden
9:00 am, immediately following 8:30 Zen Meditation
Second in a series of three talks
The Buddha lived at a time of rapid change. Newfound wealth led to a centralization of economic and political power. The Buddha had close relationships with more than one powerful king, sharing his view on kingship/politics in some detail. The development of the Buddhist Sangha, believed to be the first monastic community in history, represented a creative and practical environment to realize the Dharma. The Buddha’s leadership style was eminently pragmatic and flexible, reflecting a human being dealing with the dozens of mundane aspects of daily life and living at a time of political polarization, corruption, cut-throat competition and structural violence.
POLITICS AND SOCIETY AT THE TIME OF THE BUDDHA
Saturday, 6/20
by Prof. Tom Daijo Redden
9am after 8:30am scheduled meditation
First in series of three talks
Daijo will describe the physical environment of the Buddha’s community (dense and dangerous forests); the intellectual environment (the Buddha’s stiff competition from other ascetic movements, in addition to Brahmanism); the social/economic dynamics (urbanization, a money economy, new technologies), and a growing culture of individualism and materialism. The society in which Buddhism developed was full of complexity, violence, wealth and uncertainty. A very different world?
MINI-RETREAT
May, 9:00 am - 12:00 pm,
led by Roshi Eve Myonen Marko and Sensei Sally Sonen Kealy
9:00 Zen Meditation
9:30 Panic and Pandemic: Talk by Sensei Sonen followed by Q&A
10:30 Zen Meditation
11:00 Zazoom, or Everybody’s Sitting: Talk by RoshiEve followed by Q&A
12:00 Four Vows
Fee: There is no fee for this event. We encourage you to offer generous dana for teachers by using PayPal or by mailing a check to: Green River Zen Center, POB 247, Montague, MA 01351.
Please register: dantikapm@gmail.com or 413-588-8053.
SPRING RETREAT - On hold due to Covid-19
Led by Roshi Eve Myonen MarkoWe will celebrate spring, the time of renewal, new possibilities, and new vows with a retreat beginning on the evening of Thursday, April 16, and continuing until noon on Sunday, April 19. The retreat will include meditation, talks, council practice, liturgy, and face-to-face with Roshi.
The retreat will end with a Lay Preceptor ceremony for Suzanne Shunryo Webber. For that reason, talks at the retreat will focus on the practice of precepts and how it relates to a “Way that is basically perfect and all-pervading . . .a Dharma Body that is free and untrammeled.” If, as Dogen says, there is “no means to brush it clean,” why do we make vows to precepts?
The retreat will begin with a simple supper on Thursday, April 16, at 6:00 pm, will include all three meals on Friday-Saturday, breakfast on Sunday, and refreshments after the ceremony. The daily schedule will start at 7 am and continue till 9 pm, except on Sunday when the retreat will end at noon.
Fee: Members: $180; Non-members: $210. Part-time attendance is possible @$60. for members and $70 for non-members. Scholarships are available; no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
On-site accommodations are available for an extra fee. Other local accommodations are available for free.
Dana will be requested on behalf of Roshi.
Please register by April 9 by contacting Dantika: dantikapm@gmail.com, or call: 413-588-8053.
HOUSEHOLDER KOANS: PORTALS TO OUR INNATE WISDOM
Series of three 2-hour workshops on Thursday evenings at the home of Roshi Eve
1/30, 2/27, 4/2
6:30-8:30 pm
Fee for series: $45.
“Koans demand that we forge into ways of seeing and responding that have nothing to do with analysis, or even reflections, and
everything to do with … a radical acceptance of life as it is…. A life situation becomes a koan when it has jolted you out of your
usual linear way of thinking,... when you no longer think about the situation but instead close the gap between the subject and
the object, between yourself and what you are facing.”
From the Introduction, The Book of Householder Koans: Waking Up In the Land
of Attachments by Wendy Egyoku Nakao and Eve Myonen Marko
Most of us continue to think of practice as something we do seated on a cushion. At the same time, it’s often the situations that challenge and aggravate, grating at our nerves often for years, that become portals to our own innate wisdom. Maintaining an open, spacious mind, we plunge into the very aspect of life (the people, the feelings, the situation) that is most taxing and provoking. We don’t figure anything out, we don’t come up with an answer; with great patience we feel our way, bear witness, befriend.
Don’t be surprised if tenderness emerges, or if your life song suddenly cracks open and soars. It doesn’t have to be big, it can be small. Either way, something unclogs and becomes workable. We will reflect on and write our koans, examine what makes certain stories or situations koans, and create our own commentaries.
Fee: $45 for series (but no one will be excluded for lack of funds).
Please pre-register with Danika: 413-549-9336; or, dantikapm@gmail.com
ZEN DOUBLE FEATURE
Two Part Program to Introduce Zen Practice
Saturday, February 29
Join us for this two-part program to introduce zen meditation and study with a teacher, led by Roshi Eve Myonen Marko, Head Teacher of Green River Zen Center.
In the morning, 9:00 am - 11:30 am, Introduction to Zen Meditation Practice. Instruction for meditation (body, mind and breath), meditation sessions, a brief talk, and Q and A.
In the afternoon,12:30 pm - 3:00 pm, Zen mediation and individual face-to-face meetings with Roshi Eve.
We encourage you, if possible, to participate in the whole day’s retreat, integrating the morning’s teachings with more meditation in the afternoon. Bring a bag lunch if you plan to stay for the afternoon.
Fees: Full day, $35. Morning only, $20. Afternoon only, $15.
Green River Zen is committed to offering meditation instruction regardless of one’s ability to pay. If you don't have the fee, please make whatever donation you could afford.
Why do meditation? Because meditation has been medically documented to reduce stress, improve concentration, and strengthen the immune system. Not to mention that it also brings joy and a sense of wellbeing. This Introduction is appropriate for beginning meditators as well as Buddhist practitioners who wish to learn more about Zen meditation.
You must let us know by Thursday, February 27, that you’re coming. Please register by contacting Dantika: dantikapm@gmail.com, OR: 413-588-8053.
INTENSIVE: DOGEN IN WINTER
During this winter intensive, we will study Dogen, and specifically his fascicle, Uji, or Being-Time. Uji, is one of the more enigmatic and penetrating fascicles in Dogen’s Shobogenzo. While the fascicle is ostensibly about time, Dogen actually addresses some of the most basic points of daily and moment-by-moment Zen practice. He illustrates how the minute we begin to investigate time, we are actually entering the dharma gate of actualizing our own Buddha Nature.
We’ll review our usual sense of sequential time vs. simultaneous time, how being-time encompasses practice, enlightenment, and actualization altogether, and the continuous practice of all beings. We will look at “dharma positions” and how the particular intersects with the whole at every moment.
When we penetrate Dogen, we can’t help but be moved by the vast panorama he opens before our eyes and how infinity flows through us at every moment, whether we realize this or not.
For this reason, an intensive commitment to zazen while studying Dogen is important. Dogen is constantly pulling down our mental frontiers, putting a mirror up to our mind and showing us how stuck we are inside its constructs. The point isn’t to parse out his enigmatic-sounding text but rather maintain an open, unbounded mind in which to hold his teachings. Please join the winter intensive on Tuesday evening, January 14, by making a commitment to more regular and extended sitting practice for the duration of the intensive.
Text for the Winter Intensive: Being-Time: A Practitioner’s Guide to Dogen’s Shobogenzo Uji by Shinshu Roberts
BEGINNERS MIND
Saturday, March 14, 8:30 am-10:00 am
Meditation will begin with basic instruction, followed by a reading of Eihei Dogen’s Fukanzazengiand discussion/Q&A of meditation practice and daily life. Led by Roshi Eve.
GATE OF SWEET NECTAR
Green River Zen Center usually chants the Gate of Sweet Nectar, the Zen Peacemakers’ liturgy feeding all the hungry ghosts, each month on Saturdays at 9:30 am following meditation. The Gate will be chanted on January 18, February 15, and March 21.
COUNCIL PRACTICE
Green River Zen Center does a monthly council practice on the last Tuesday of every month. It will take place this winter on Tuesdays, January 28, February 25, and March 31. Council is a circle practice of listening and speaking from the heart. Its foundation is consonant with the Three Tenets of the Zen Peacemakers: Not-knowing, bearing witness, and loving action.
RENEWAL OF VOWS CEREMONY
A ceremony renewing our vows to the Precepts will take place on or close to the full moon on Tuesdays, January 21 and March 24. All are invited to participate.
MEMBERSHIP IN GREEN RIVER ZEN CENTER
Do you consider yourself part of the sangha? If so, please consider becoming a member and making monthly financial commitments to help support basic operations at the Zendo. You can also do service in lieu of some of the membership fee.
As a member, you will receive reductions in retreat prices. Most important, you will be supporting the flowering of the sangha’s practice.
For more information, please see Membership Program, or contact: Dantika Petriana Monize at dantikapm@gmail.com
Do you consider yourself part of the sangha? If so, please consider becoming a member and making monthly financial commitments to help support basic operations at the Zendo. You can also do service in lieu of some of the membership fee.
As a member, you will receive reductions in retreat prices. Most important, you will be supporting the flowering of the sangha’s practice.
For more information, please see Membership Program, or contact: Dantika Petriana Monize at dantikapm@gmail.com