One Body Sangha

An experimental new practice community -- you are invited.

“Heaven and Earth share the same root, and I and the myriad things are one body.” — Zen Master Sengzhao

Dear Friends,

I hope you are doing well in these days.

Over the weekend I led the Eon Zen practice community in a two-day retreat which began Friday night. Halfway through, we concluded our practice on Saturday to discover our country had directly entered the conflict with Iran. So the chaos continues…

I’ve been mindful recently of the conditions in which Zen originally flourished. Tang Dynasty China, the three centuries from 600 to 900 CE, is considered the Golden Age of Zen. Through these years, the deep teachings about Mind that had been initiated by Siddhartha Gotama in India around 500 BCE intermingled with the profound cosmological metaphysics of Chinese Taoism, giving birth to the direct awakening practices we call Zen.

It was also a period of frequent and widespread social upheaval, with uprisings, battling warlords and internal invasions. There are several famous accounts of Zen Masters being killed by bandits.

For me our chaotic social times are a call to “get real” and develop my internal capacity for being present and meeting the world with wisdom and compassion. It’s a time to lean into love, light and law, and explore a re-enchanted world as an empowered soul.

This may sound like a “big ask,” but really it is not. We can all do it. There is nothing stopping us.

Today I am happy to invite all my readers to an experimental new Zen practice community that I and my senior students launched this month.

It is called the One Body Sangha, and it is geared for people around the world who may not have a local meditation center to learn and practice with. As an online-first community, it is focused on supporting people practicing in the midst of their home and work lives.

For the last several years, I have been inviting my Zen@Work clients and community to membership in my Eon Zen Center. Several people have taken advantage of the programs there, which has been possible since we offer most programs online.

But with a primary focus on in-person, traditional Zen practice, I felt that EZC was maybe not the ideal place for people who are remote, who may not be looking for traditional Zen, and who are very focused on practice in the midst of family and work life.

So we created One Body Sangha to better serve this community.

I suspect many readers of Zen@Work Today may be interested, so I encourage you to check it out, get on the newsletter list and explore other opportunities for learning, practice and community.

There are many short practice periods at various times throughout the week to support people in different time zones, and monthly sessions to learn and connect.

It is all available for free (or open donation).

All of the heavy lifting in creating this platform was done by two of my senior students, Lisa Gakyo Schaewe and Sam Sokyo Randall, both of whom who have been studying with me for over ten years. They are the primary Practice Leaders of the OBS.

In addition to practicing Zen for many years, they both, as women and artists, bring important dimensions to this community that I don’t. The website is full of their original art and photography, so check it out for that alone!

Like all social forms these days, the forms of organized meditation practice are changing. This platform is truly an experiment in connecting, learning and practicing from wherever we are embodied in the world.

I’ll conclude with a Zen story that brings out an important aspect of what the OBS is all about.

“Once upon a time, the Awakened One (Buddha) was walking with gods and humans, when he paused. He pointed to the ground and said, ‘this is a suitable site to build a temple.’ The god Indra then plucked a blade of grass from nearby, and stuck it into the ground at the spot where the Buddha had pointed. Indra declared, ‘The temple is built!’ The World Honored One smiled. — Book of Equanimity, Case 4.

See, we sometimes think that we have to go somewhere special or sacred to access our deepest level of presence: the church, monastery or meditation hall. Or we have to “build” something — a structure or a body of knowledge or a lifestyle — to hold and practice our own sacredness.

But that’s not true. Ultimately, it is right where you sit, right here, right now.

The One Body Sangha attempts to connect us in our individual “right here, right nows.” To do so with warmth and fellow-feeling, love, respect, delight and joy.

I invite you to sign up and jump in as you are called.

P.S. As I mentioned last week, I am putting the final touches on my expanded Zen@Work platform, which I’ll be launching in a few weeks. I am really excited about this! In the meantime, I also have two coaching spots I would love to fill, so sign up for a Free Discovery Call if you’d like help bringing out your ensouled sacredness in work and home life. I have flexible programs.

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