Day: Thursday
Time: 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Affiliation: Flower Mountain Zen
Contact: Chris Gaffney cgaffney@csuchico.edu or 530-588-4941
Practice: Chan/Zen practice
Timeline: We begin with about 30 minutes of silent meditation keeping company with a koan* that is given by the head of practice. We have ~15 minutes for socializing and tea, then return for a brief sitting meditation, followed by a talk by the head of practice, typically Chris Gaffney. We then spend ~45 minutes in conversation that centers on how the practice/koan/meditation is found in our lives.
Participating: Sitting quietly with one another is a deep way we all participate. We invite you to join in our group conversation after meditation as much as you feel comfortable. There is no pressure to speak, listening is also a powerful way to participate. We do believe that heartfelt, honest conversation is very helpful in freeing us from the prisons we build for ourselves. Please join us – all of us is wiser than any of us.
Cost: There is no cost for joining us for meditation, if you can we do ask for a donation to support the operating costs of the Center as a whole.
More about our Sangha:
This is the stone, drenched with rain, that points the way’ - Santoka
The mission of our Sangha is to help one another open our minds and hearts to the Buddha nature inherent in all beings. Our practice is one of silent meditation, koan inquiry, and Dharma conversation. The use of koans – stories which provide a bridge between the spoken and the unspoken, and thereby provide a path to fuller embodiment of spiritual practice – is key in our Sangha.
Our Chan/Zen practice is one in which neither conceptual clarity nor psychological equanimity, both good things, is considered fundamental. What we wish to nurture is a better feel for our own true nature, which we have found is fundamentally mysterious, as is the universe we find ourselves in. These are not separate mysteries.
Chris Gaffney provides leadership as Head of Practice. He has followed a Chan/Zen path for over 25 years, and meets regularly with his guiding teacher Rachel Boughton Roshi, who is the leader of Flower Mountain Zen.
We meet every Thursday evening from 7:00 – 9:00. We begin with silent meditation, a koan having been dropped into the silence at the beginning of meditation. After silent meditation, both sitting and walking, we have a dharma talk, usually by Chris Gaffney. After the talk, we share experiences we have had in our meditation and in the conversation. We believe that heartfelt, honest conversation is very helpful in freeing us from chains of habitual feeling and thinking.
The point of Chan practice is to have it vanish into our actual life, including the knotty parts, the parts where any ‘answer’ found is not what’s important. Engaging with koans facilitates the embodied recognition that the Buddha’s awakening is not distinct from ours. Please join us – all of us is wiser than any of us.
Questions? Contact Chris at cgaffney@csuchico.edu (530-588-4941).