No zazen Weds 4 April

Just a quick note to say that there will be no zazen on the evening of Wednesday 4 April as I'm away on sesshin (retreat) that week. Zazen this week (28/3) and the following week (11/4) as usual.

For those curious about sesshin, here's a link to a piece by Andy Tanzan Scott from a few years back which gives some of the basics. There are a few blog posts about sesshin on the main StoneWater site actually - worth a browse, some great reflections there from experienced sitters and those newer to the practice. Sesshin isn't just for those who've been practising for years, we do occasionally have people join us who have never sat before! (Heck of a way to start...!)

For those of you considering going on sesshin, I'd very much encourage it - it's an integral part of Zen practice. Being able to spend 4, 5 or 6 days focusing on your practice is a wonderful opportunity to deepen your experience of zazen, to meet many other people in our fantastic sangha, and to have "proper" interviews with an actual Zen teacher!

All the folk attending the Spring sesshin 2017 with Tenshin Roshi (grey kesa)
and Keizan Sensei (blue kesa). Muggins is in the back row! 

Back to campus...!

Thanks again to Chetak, Joey and the rest of the committee and members of the University of Northampton Meditation Society for their invitation to run an introductory session on Zen meditation last Thursday. This was part of a series of sessions for "Meditation March", a chance to commit to practising regularly for the month of March.

Rather than delving into too much of the arcane and theatrical, this time we just did some "plain" zazen - OK, perhaps a bit of kin-hin and the Four Vows thrown in, but otherwise just plain old zazen.

It was a dark and stormy night... really! With the snow building up around the county, I was very impressed that we had fourteen people turn up to give it a go, and we had a chance for an interesting chat at the end.

Once again, I really enjoyed my visit, the MedSoc aways gives a warm and attentive welcome (as you'd hope!), and I'm already looking forward to the next one.

Chetak took some photos of the day - a brief selection below...