(3 of 3) Everything Included, One at a Time - Introduction to Zazen - Thinking, Shikantaza

Facilitated by Kodo, consider this three-part series a gradual entry into shikantaza, the foundational meditation practice of our school. This course is designed sequentially: we will develop our skills of awareness to include all parts of our experience, one at a time.

First session 8/9: To form our foundation: meditation on breathing and tips for establishing a daily practice.

Second session 8/16: To build upon our skills to include awareness of the body and wise practice with emotions.

Third session 8/23: To develop a mindful relationship to thinking. Having now trained with breath, body, and mind, we open to shikantaza, the heart of Zazen meditation.

Part 2: Eating Food, Finding Freedom

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Zen practice is radically inclusive; all elements of daily life are a part of practice. This includes our relationship to food: how we eat, what we eat, when and why we eat. Despite engaging in eating throughout the day, it often remains opaque and uninvestigated in our daily life. In a country wracked with obesity, malnutrition, and an endless hunger for more, what does it look like to eat wisely? As food is so closely linked to craving, to emotions, and to well-being, if we are to fully wake up, we must include our relationship to food. 

In the first class in this series we studied the eight types of hunger as discussed by Jan Chozen Bays, author of the book Mindful Eating. These types of hunger describe why we eat.

In the coming class, we will explore how we eat, learning practices for doing so mindfully and wisely.  

During the session we will do some mindful eating together, so please bring a food item in a quantity sufficient to have 3 or 4 bites. 

If you would like to listen to part 1 of this series, you can find it here. 

(2 of 3) Everything Included, One at a Time - Introduction to Zazen

Facilitated by Kodo, consider this three-part series a gradual entry into shikantaza, the foundational meditation practice of our school. This course is designed sequentially: we will develop our skills of awareness to include all parts of our experience, one at a time.

First session 8/9: To form our foundation: meditation on breathing and tips for establishing a daily practice.

Second session 8/16: To build upon our skills to include awareness of the body and wise practice with emotions.

Third session 8/23: To develop a mindful relationship to thinking. Having now trained with breath, body, and mind, we open to shikantaza, the heart of Zazen meditation.

(1 of 3) Everything Included, One at a Time - Introduction to Zazen

Facilitated by Kodo, consider this three-part series a gradual entry into shikantaza, the foundational meditation practice of our school. This course is designed sequentially: we will develop our skills of awareness to include all parts of our experience, one at a time.

First session 8/9: To form our foundation: meditation on breathing and tips for establishing a daily practice.

Second session 8/16: To build upon our skills to include awareness of the body and wise practice with emotions.

Third session 8/23: To develop a mindful relationship to thinking. Having now trained with breath, body, and mind, we open to shikantaza, the heart of Zazen meditation.

The Dharma Gate of Repose and Bliss? What Zazen is Dogen talking about?

Anshi Zachary Smith delivers a talk that asks, and attempts to address, the eternal question, “The Dharma Gate of Repose and Bliss? What Zazen is Dogen talking about?” Many practitioners are baffled by the claim, made in Dogen’s Fukanzazengi, that Zazen is not meditation in the traditional sense but simply the doorway to an experience that is translated as above but also as “ease and joy” in some version of the liturgy. They might (rightly) ask, “How is me sitting here with my knees aching and my mind running off like a dog in a dog park ‘the Dharma Gate of anything?” We’ll get into why, and how it works.

Zachary is a priest at City Center who started practicing here in 1993, was ordained as a priest in 2014 and received Dharma Transmission in 2019. One might reasonably ask what took him so long.

You can find his bio here: https://www.sfzc.org/teachers/anshi-zachary-smith