What is the difference between practicing meditation only, on your own at home, and practicing in sangha at the Zen Center? It IS essential that you practice at home. It IS your own practice, after all, no matter where you are. And developing a habit of stopping and clearing is the method of the Way. But practicing at a Zen Center, participating in the work of maintaining the center, is where we refine our understanding of the import of the three legs of practice – meditation, study and precepts. It is a full unfolding, dynamic path and it’s how we come to understand the depth and breadth of the way of the Way.
How we conduct ourselves at the Center as we do the work of maintaining the offerings – by keeping the place clean and welcoming, maintaining the newsletter and the website, the library, deciding the schedule, choosing the focus for retreats and arranging for registration, all the fundraising that is needed, we tend with care to almost infinite details. This the way that we engage Zen training. It always has been this way. And there is a reason for this. Which is that by showing up in this work we help each other be minutely aware, studying the experience of meditation, work and play in the liveliness of relationship as it unfolds at the Center. We practice together here with optimal conditions. It inspires us to bring our Zen experience and insight into all aspects of our cacophonous life, when we are away from a place dedicated to Zen practice. Cultivating awareness together in this way highlights the completeness of each moment, no matter where we are.
