Pine Wind Zen Community Audio

Is there anything we can learn from the holiday season about "happiness and joy"? The pursuit of happiness from the Buddhist point-of-view involves craving or desiring something we believe will give us happiness, or the desire for something more, better, or different than what's so now. This is also what the Buddha defined as "the cause for suffering" (the second noble truth). True happiness is not achieved by doing or pursuing, it is a function of "being". We will explore the questions, "What is the Happiness Code?", "How can we apply it not only during the holiday season but everyday?"

In the tradition of Zen training, meditation or Zazen is attention to details. We gather our attention and devote it with precision to body posture and breath, to the quality of our breath following each inhale and exhale, sitting upright to ensure that body-mind remains attentive to here and now. Cultivating precision in attending to details ultimately leads to greater ease in all areas of our living. Come explore The Art of Attention when meditating, communicating, parenting, in the workplace, wherever you are, whatever you're doing. The evening will include instructions in Zazen, practices for being present to yourself (intuitiveness) and others, and your environment.

Fundamental to Living a Zen-Inspired Life is realizing that, "Everything seen by the human eye is void, empty of any intrinsic value." Every experience is a function of the "meaning" we have given to any event, person, place, or thing. At anytime we can alter or change our experience no matter the circumstance or situation. When navigating through the many events of life, it is important to have the right questions. The most important question when managing stress and anxiety, grief or disappointment is, "What meaning am I giving to this?"

On the way toward truly being "Free" all "choices" must cease to exist except one, the "choice to be free". What is freedom? "It is the moment by moment experience of not being run by one's own reactive mechanisms." What does it mean to live one's life "on purpose"? If you really want to have "more hours in a day" take a look of how much of the day is wasted trying to meet "all the choices in your life"! Tonight we will explore "slimming down our lives" and "learning to live life more purposefully!"

Learn Mindfulness techniques for creating "ease and joy" throughout the day and at those moments we may be experiencing stress or anxiety, and when we need it the most.

Whenever we are closed to life as it is, all of it, we suffer and those we love and care about never really get to know us, or we them. Opening the Heart is the stuff of Authentic Spirituality and Living a Zen-Inspired Life, but it takes skillfulness and effort, courage and a commitment to loving oneself and life fully.

Living a Zen-Inspired Way-of-Life is the ground for Beyond Happiness and Real Transformation.

Within our mind exists an extraordinary potential for inner peace and happiness. Through the simple practice of meditation, along with Buddha's time-tested advice for daily life, we can learn to access that potential. We can learn to let go of the agitated states of mind, such as anger, that produce unhappiness and instead we can cultivate peaceful, powerful minds such as compassion and wisdom.

How does the concept "Me, Myself, and I" contribute to stress and suffering in our lives? How often has our position to defend and protect "I" and "My" opinions, beliefs, or expectations compound the suffering in our relationships at home and in the workplace? We will look at the difference between a "Healthy Sense of Self" and the illusion "Me, Myself, and I" created by an "egocentric" point of view of oneself and the world, which continues to keep us stuck and endangers relationships at home and in the workplace. How to get out of the trap and live, love, and be joyful!

Bringing Mindfulness to Our Relationships

"Whatever we give our attention to increases, whatever we don't decreases." Living a Zen Inspired Life is bringing Mindfulness to our Relationships at home, at work, in the community, and our friendships. We will explore the Inner Core of Mindfulness in Relationships which is called - Love Without the Stuff.

Aversion to anxiety is often accompanied by reactivity and actions that worsen how we feel. We suffer. Tonight’s presentation taught from the perspectives of Zen and Mindfulness meditation practices, is supported by the latest neuroscience and psychological research. Our focus will be on our direct experience. We will practice uncovering the natural state of a quieted mind, slowing down enough to see what is actually happening when we describe ourselves as anxious. As we cultivate the opportunity to be with what is actually happening with awareness and clarity, we can respond to difficulties with consciousness, ease and new choices, rather than with reactivity that at times can make things worse.