A Year to Live (Year-Long Program)

A Year To Live,
practice group Bread Loaf Mountain Zen Community in association with the Zen Peacemakers Low Lands

Orientation meeting Sunday August 1st (for the different time zones see below), the orientation meeting will be approximately 2 hours.

A Year to Live is being offered as a year-long practice program. This year-long practice is not simply a study of dying but a renewal of life, moment to moment. It is about the restoration of the heart as we confront our life and death with mercy and awareness. It is an opportunity to embrace life as we embrace our inevitable death in a year-long experience of healing, joy and revitalization.

Based on the book “A Year to Live” by Stephen Levine, we will explore how to live for a year “as if it were our last.”
In his book, Stephen Levine, teaches us how to live each moment, each hour, each day mindfully–as if it were all that was your last. On his deathbed, Socrates exhorted his followers to practice dying as the highest form of wisdom. Levine decided to live this way himself for a whole year, and now he shares with us how such immediacy radically changes our view of the world and forces us to examine our priorities. Most of us go to extraordinary lengths to ignore, laugh off, or deny the fact that we are going to die, but preparing for death is one of the most rational and rewarding acts of a lifetime. Through his book, Stephen Levine offers the opportunity to deal with unfinished business and enter into a new and vibrant relationship with life. Levine provides us with a year-long program of intensely practical strategies and powerful guided meditations to help with this work, so that whenever the ultimate moment does arrive for each of us, we will not feel that it has come too soon.

The program format includes:

• Meditation
• Reflection on the reading or topic for that month
• Discussion and Exchange of experiences
• Council format for sharing

During the program participants are invited to facilitate a meeting with a topic related to reading for that month or related areas arising in the group.

Readings:
“A Year to Live, how to live this year as if it were your last” by Stephen Levine is required.

“Five Invitations” by Frank Ostaseski is recommended.

“A Year to Live” program starts with an orientation meeting August 1st 2021 and regular monthly meeting starting the first Sunday of September 2021. There will be two groups with a limited number of participants. This program is offered internationally via Zoom with an English speaking group and a Dutch speaking group.

The orientation meeting (for both languages) will be held on Sunday August 1st and will be in English

• 8am Pacific Time
• 9am Mountain Time
• 10am Central Time
• 11 am Eastern Time
• 4pm UK Time
• 5pm Amsterdam Time

If you want to start your own group, you are welcome to join the orientation meeting to guide your process.

Year long program:
The English speaking group will start the first Sunday of September and will meet every first Sunday of the month.
Each meeting will last 3 hours.

• 8am – 11am Pacific Time
• 9am – 12pm Mountain Time
• 10am- 1pm Central Time
• 11am – 2pm Eastern Time
• 4pm – 7pm UK Time
• 5pm – 8pm Amsterdam Time (dutch speaking people can choose to be in the English or Dutch speaking group)

The English group will be facilitated by

Mary McCarthy and

Petra Zenryū Hubbeling

The Dutch speaking group starts the first Sunday of September and will meet every first Sunday of the month.
Each meeting will last 3 hours.

Time: 19.00 – 22.00 Amsterdam Time

The Dutch group will be facilitated by

Anna Berghoef and

Annie Schalkwijk

Are you interested in the orientation meeting please send an email to info@breadloafmountainzen.org and let us know if you are interested in the English or Dutch group or that you want to start your own group.

This program is donation based.