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Spring 2022 Practice Period – Touching the Bodhisattva Heart
May 1, 2022 - May 27, 2022
Touching the Bodhisattva Heart:
Embracing your life. Embracing the world.
- A four-week Spring practice period with Bread Loaf Mountain Zen Community: May 1st – May 27th, 2022
- Sesshin Dates: Wednesday 18th – Sunday 22nd May (5 day sesshin)
- Shuso ceremony: Wednesday 25th May.
How do you open your own Bodhisattva heart? How do you bring Bodhisattva action to life? How does a Bodhisattva, the Bodhisattva within you, embrace the world?
Dogen gives us a way: giving, kind speech, beneficial action, and identity action. He calls these, The Four Embracing Dharmas.
During this month of practice, we will study the Four Embraces of a Bodhisattva as we sit, study, serve, and bear witness. Each week we will explore and practice deeply with each one in our daily lives by emptying the mind, opening the heart, and acting kindly.
Through daily meditation, a weekly seminar, dharma talk, and conversations over tea, we will build a welcoming and warm community of practice from wherever you are. This program will be offered online for anyone who would like to participate, and in person for a limited number of people. There will be suggested readings and writing exercises, opportunities for creativity, as well as suggested embodied practices for taking action and embracing the path of service in your family and community. There will be a short sesshin to embrace the world in our silence. Dogen inspires us by saying that kind speech can turn the destiny of a nation. In fact, all four of these Bodhisattva actions can shape the future while transforming your own heart here and now.
Join us starting on Sunday, May 1 and ending on Friday, May 27th.
You will choose for yourself a level of participation that you can stay with in the context of the rest of your daily activities.
Depending on the pandemic we might have spots for joining at Bread Loaf Mountain in-person. You can fill out your preference on the registration form. As soon as we know how many people we can host in person we will send you an email. But we hope to create a rich online experience for everyone.
Individual practice conversations with Joshin and Eisho will be available throughout the practice period.
Eisho and Joshin will co-lead a five day sesshin (optional for all attendees) on May 18-22.
Registering now allows us to plan the schedule better. The full schedule will be available on the website by March 1.
This program, as all programs at Bread Loaf Mountain Zen Community, is offered on a dana basis and no one is turned away. You can give what you can or make the suggested donation of $250 for the month or $75 for the sesshin.
