Zen Practice
Zen Practice
Zen is a Buddhist tradition for spiritual and human development that focuses its practice on our daily lives, our careers, our relationships, roles, and tasks, our play. Zen challenges the way we see ourselves and the world, guiding us into deep exploration, a path of discovery, and intimate states of awareness. The essential practice at every stage of Zen development is meditation.
People engage with Zen Garland through the local Clear Lake Community for expert guidance on how to develop a powerful spirituality that sustains us in good and difficult times, guides us toward what is meaningful, and nurtures concentration, inner peace, emotional strength, a compassionate character, and discerning wisdom.
Creations are numberless – I vow to free them.
Delusions are inexhaustible – I vow to transform them.
Reality is boundless – I vow to perceive it.
The enlightened way is unsurpassable – I vow to embody it.
Why Zen?
What makes Zen unique is how it grounds the most complex questions and dilemmas of human being into practical and profound encounters with daily life. The Zen training hall becomes our daily life, our way of being in the world with ourselves, our intimate circle, our work, and communities. Zen is a way of being characterized by authenticity, practicality, compassion, flexibility, spontaneity, and wisdom. A wonderful aspect of Zen is its embrace of humor and humility in the face of the limits of what we can know and control in life.
Introduction to Zen Practice
The teaching staff and coordinator at Clear Lake offers a FREE, two-step process to introduce you to the world of Zen.
On Tuesday evenings each week we hold the Introduction to Zen Meditation for new students where we teach the body, breath, and mind of Zen meditation. We show a number of different positions for meditation and help each person find what is right for them. We give instructions on “abdominal breathing” that allows filling the lungs while slowing and deepening breathing. We present ways to anchor the unruly mind and develop concentration. We suggest how to apply Zen meditation to other activities in life, answer questions and share discussions. Ultimately, Zen and Zazen are embodied in each and every moment of our personal daily life.
Please visit our calendar for time and location!
Eight Core Practices
All Zen Garland Order practices are meant to awaken practitioners to the multiple perspectives of reality, “boundlessness” (sunyata), and to guide them to manifest that realization with authenticity and integrity in their personal lives.
“Seeing into the nature of things” (kensho”) reveals the identity and shared relationships of all creation, including our seemingly individual selves.