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Hidden Lamp Workshop offered by Florence Caplow in Ashton, MD

A number of All Beings Sangha Members attended and enjoyed the wonderful workshop focusing on the Koan Stories of Zen Women Ancestors.  Florence Caplow the co-editor of the collection was in town from Champagne Il and made the time to lead the afternoon gathering of this assemble of women coming from diverse Sanghas in the greater Washington DC/Baltimore region.  The workshop was very engaging and brought forth qualities of tenderness, strength, solidarity and resolve among those gathered.  Gratitude to One Heart Sangha for hosting and organizing the event!

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Guest Speaker – Mike McClary on “What exactly is climate change”? Saturday October 26th, 2019 1:30pm

Saturday October 26th, 1:30-3pm

As part of the All Beings Zen Sangha Ango theme The whole Earth is my body we will host guest speaker Mike McClary, esq. to  present information and answer questions on the topics of:

What is climate change?

How it will affect the world in the coming decades?

What needs to be done to reduce its risk?

Mike McClary has served for 27 years as an environmental enforcement attorney for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Since 2009, that work has included criminal enforcement in EPA’s Legal Counsel Division, in the Office of Criminal Enforcement, Forensics and Training (OCEFT), in Washington, D.C.  Mike has a Master of Divinity (M.Div) degree from Yale, and a Master of Legal Letters (LL.M.) degree in Environmental Law, from Pace University Law School.  He has completed the Climate Reality Leadership Program training,  in order to help educate people in the fight against global warming.  The Climate Reality Project is a climate education and action initiative founded and led by former Vice President Albert Gore.  

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Dharma Talk offered by Guest Teacher Rev. Ben Connelly on “Mindfulness & Intimacy”

Mindfulness and Intimacy

Go beyond mere mindfulness—and deepen your connection to your self, the people in your life, and the world around you.

Mindfulness is an ancient and powerful practice of awareness and nonjudgmental discernment that can help us ground ourselves in the present moment, with the world and our lives just as they are. But there’s a risk: by focusing our attention on something (or someone), we might always see it as something other, as separate from ourselves. To close this distance, mindfulness has traditionally been paired with a focus on intimacy, community, and interdependence. In this book, Ben Connelly shows us how to bring these two practices together—bringing warm hearts to our clear seeing.

Helpful meditations and exercises show how mindfulness and intimacy can together enrich our empathetic engagement with ourselves and the world around us—with our values, with the environment, and with the people in our lives, in all their distinct manifestations of race and religion, sexuality and gender, culture and class—and lead to a truly engaged, compassionate, and joy-filled life.

Ben Connelly is a Soto Zen teacher and Dharma heir in the Katagiri lineage. He also teaches mindfulness in a wide variety of secular contexts including police training, correctional facilities, and addiction recovery groups. Ben is based at Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, travels to teach across the United States, and is the author for Wisdom Publications of Inside the Grass Hut, Inside Vasubandhu’s Yogacara, and Mindfulness and Intimacy. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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Zen and Living with Disabilities Workshop with Rev. Daigan Gather on August 17th, 2019

Well attended workshop at All Beings Zen Sangha for guest teacher Rev. Daigan Gaither. He offered a meaningful look at “sickness, old age, and death” and how our zen practice requires us to quiet down and come back to connection with the bodies we have. All were touched and supported by his compassionate responses to questions and deep diving into our bodies with guided meditation and clear question processes to see “what does our practice ask of us”.

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Call for Artists – submissions for ABZS 2020 Calendar

Call to Artists! All Beings Zen Sangha is announcing a call to artists for the 2020 Sangha calendar project. Submissions are now being accepted for drawings, paintings, photography, poetry, and other forms of art and expression in digital format. Please submit up to three works for consideration by August 15, 2019 via e-mail to Inryu at inryubobbi@gmail.com or John at emailjohnf@gmail.com

(photo by Alex Lima)

May all beings be happy!

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Making Paper Cranes Fly: A Report from Fort Sill, Oklahoma by Rev. Duncan Ryuken Williams

 

By REV. DUNCAN RYUKEN WILLIAMS

Buddhist Leaders Join Tsuru for Solidarity and Other Marchers at Fort Sill Protest [July 20, 2019] (credit, AP Wire)
Tsuru for Solidarity x Buddhist Clergy and Lay Leaders: Group Photo Before the March onto Fort Sill Entrance (credit, Julie Yumi Hatta) Tsuru for Solidarity NYC (alphabetical): Becca Asaki, Mike Ishii, Linda Morris, Lauren Sumida, Carl Takei

Buddhist Clergy and Lay Leaders (alphabetical): Rev. Myozen Joan Amaral (Zen Center North Shore, MA), Rev. Gyokuko Carlson (Dharma Rain Zen Center, OR), Rev. William Briones (LA Nishi Hongwanji Buddhist Temple), Rev. Eijun Linda Ruth Cutts (San Francisco Zen Center), Rev. Zenshin Greg Fain (Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery), Rev. Jitsujo Tina Gauthier (Zen Center of Los Angeles), Rev. Tova Green (San Francisco Zen Center), Rev. Gesshin Greenwood (Empty Moon Zen Center), Julie Yumi Hatta (Buddhist Churches of America), Rev. Ryuji Hayashi (LA Koyasan Beikoku Betsuin), Sandy Seiju Hockenbury (Eon Zen Center, CO), Maurice Hoover (Prairie Wind Sangha, Oklahoma City), Juliet Hwang (Plum Village Sangha), Rev. Shumyo Kojima (LA Zenshuji Soto Mission), Rev. Mui Mike Lewis (Great Mountain Zen Center, CO), Rev. Nick Ushin Lowry (Rinzai/Oklahoma City), Keigetsu Heather Martin (San Antonio Zen Center), Rev. Egyoku Nakao (Zen Center of Los Angeles), Steven Nakasone (LA Higashi Honganji/Plum Village Sangha), Judy Nakatomi (San Diego Vista Buddhist Temple/Plum Village Sangha), Kenley Neufeld (Plum Village Sangha), Rev. Inryu Bobbi Ponce-Barger (All Beings Sangha, DC), Rev. Tenku Ruff (Soto Zen Buddhist Association), Eric Kairen Russell (Tendai Buddhist Institute/Oklahoma City), Rev. Grace Schireson (Shogaku Zen Institute), Kathy Spengler (Rissho Koseikai/Oklahoma City), Rev. Duncan Ryuken Williams (author of American Sutra)

 

To read the full report by Rev. Duncan Ryuken Williams click here 

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Remembrance of July 20th, 2019 Tsuru for Solidarity gathering in Oklahoma by ABZS guiding teacher Rev. Inryu.

 

Before joining the morning procession to the memorial site near the Ft. Sill Gate we were gathered for a photograph

Walking in the procession (Buddhist Clergy to the right in the below photograph)

Protestors march outside Fort Sill in protest of plans to place migrant children at the Army post in Lawton, Okla., Saturday, July 20, 2019. (Bryan Terry/The Oklahoman via AP)

Later in the day at Shepler park…

Tsuru (paper peace cranes) being offered in the second memorial service of the day to those who have suffered or were killed at Ft Sill Army Base in the past. The names of Indiginous Indian leaders were remembered.  The names of Americans of Japanese decent were remembered who died at Ft Sill interment during WWII and the names of the 10 children who have died in I.C.E custody or trying to get safe passage into the U.S. during the past year were also remembered thus linking past to present.

Those gathering at the park (more than two hundred mostly youth leaders) were invited to write the names of someone they mourned and remembered.  It was heart wrenching to see so many young people writing names and walking to the altar to offer the names for remembering.  So much suffering was being processed in this second memorial service of our day.  All the priests were struggling to remain steady witnessing this gravity, this solemn expression of so many young people’s life experience.

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June 2019 Private Practice Week for Members of All Beings Zen Sangha at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center

Members of All Beings Zen Sangha at Green Gulch Zen Center, Mill Valley CA visiting for a five day private practice week. We had a wonder filled time. Practiced with the resident community in the beautiful Zen Temple, we worked alongside in the kitchen and fields each morning and in our afternoon evening and free time we hiked the coyote trail, visited Muir Beach, wrote death poems, brush painted Enso’s and kept a daily Segiki journal.