Beginning Zen Orientation

 

Beginning Zen: An Introduction to Zen Practice. An orientation for new comers who are beginning their Zen practice was held at the UP Bonsai Garden on May 6, 2018. The first session of a three-part weekend series is given to anyone interested in exploring Zen as a contemporary meditation practice-path.

The course is structured over a 3 week period and aims to convey a theoretical and practical understanding of Zen, within a lay context. Each Sunday session consists of an informal talk as well as an opportunity for practice with our regular Zen Center Manila or UP Bonsai Garden sitting group, which includes zazen (sitting meditation) and kinhin (walking meditation).

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CHR finds its Zen

Zen Meditation Group at the CHR

Zen Meditation was introduced to the staff of the Commission on Human Rights in UP Diliman, QC. April 25, 2018.

Enough examples can show how mindfulness can cause individual and small group changes; but the question is: can you transform societies and build up populations completely committed to respect human rights? The answer is yes, according to PhD Maria Cheung, Professor at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada.

“Meditative practice can help integrate personal, collective and social transformation to uphold justice and to protect the human rights of all people of faith; and it importantly engages peaceful resistance. The development of greater self-awareness and self-regulation from mindfulness awakens a new mode of knowing and changes in thoughts and feelings are experienced,”

Those who follow mindfulness engage in greater social activism in contrast to those who refuse to accept the existence of benefits and gains in satisfaction for those who engage in a type of meditation.

Sr. Elaine MacInnes at 94.

Sr. Elaine MacInnes (b.1924) celebrates her 94th birthday in Toronto, Canada. She learned the Art of Zen from Zen masters in Japan and became a master herself, later working with convicts in prison in the Philippines.

In 1976, Sr. Elaine was assigned to the Philippines and began teaching Zen first with as small group of mostly nuns, and gradually with lay people who began hearing about “this Canadian nun teaching Zen meditation.”

 

Beginning Zen: Introduction to Zen Practice

The Beginning Zen seminars will introduce you to Zen meditation (ZAZEN). The sessions are intended for the new practitioner or student who wants a foundation and experiential background in Zen. These sessions will include short periods of sitting meditation, walking meditation, mindfulness and informal talks relating to actual Zen practice.

Dates:

Last Saurdays of the month: April 28, 2018. Seminar venue: Heroes Hills Zen Center Manila from 1pm – 5:30pm. For reservations contact: Ruth David: Mobile– 09175330733 email:  rbdavid2013@gmail.com

Zen for Beginners

Participants who joined the 3-weekend Zen for Beginners program held at the UP Bonsai Garden Meditation Center. October 15, 2017.

It is not the pointing finger.
It is the direction.
It is not the Path.
It is the Walking.
There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.
~Buddha

Zen for Beginners Orientation, UP Bonsai Garden