Dear All,
I am pleased to announce that REV. BEN CONNELLY of the Minnesota Zen Center and author of INSIDE THE GRASS HUT: LIVING SHITOU'S CLASSIC ZEN POEM, will be offering a very special Zazenkai and Talk NEXT SUNDAY MARCH 22nd, LIVE. Please come sit with us.
INSIDE THE GRASS HUT is our current "non-selection" in the Treeleaf "BEYOND WORDS & LETTERS" BOOK CLUB (LINK), and you are all invited to join there too for weekly reflections on this book. Truly, I believe it is one of the best, most direct, clearest Zen books I have read in recent years, and I also very much recommend it to all.
A little about Ben ...
From a review of the book ...Ben Connelly is a Soto Zen priest in the Katagiri lineage training with Tim Burkett at the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center. Connelly began teaching at MZMC in 2006, was ordained in 2009, and was made shuso, or head monk, in 2012. Ben is a musician by profession: a singer and songwriter, guitar teacher, film composer and multi-instrumentalist. As a priest in training at MZMC, he has taught a variety of courses to both newcomers and long-term Zen practitioners, and developed and leads Mindfulness in the Mountains backpacking/meditation retreats in Northwest Montana. He lives in Minneapolis, MN, and is dad to a teenage son.
Shitou Xiqian’s “Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage” is a remarkably accessible work of profound depth; in thirty-two lines Shitou expresses the breadth of the entire Buddhist tradition with simple, vivid imagery. Ben Connelly’s Inside the Grass Hut unpacks the timeless poem and applies it to contemporary life. His book delivers a wealth of information on the context and content of this eighth-century work, as well as directly evokes the poem's themes of simple living, calm, and a deep sense of connection to all things. Each pithy chapter focuses on a single line of the poem, letting the reader immerse himself thoroughly in each line and then come up for air before moving on to the next. Line by line, Connelly shows how the poem draws on and expresses elements from the thousand years of Buddhist thought that preceded it, expands on the poem's depiction of a life of simple practice in nature, and tells stories of the way these teachings manifest in modern life. Connelly, like Shitou before him, proves himself adept at taking profound and complex themes from Zen and laying them out in a practical and understandable way. Eminently readable, thoroughly illuminating, Inside the Grass Hut shows the reader a path of wholehearted engagement—with the poem, and with the world.
AVAILABLE:
http://www.wisdompubs.org/book/inside-grass-hut
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Grass-H.../dp/1614291217HOW TO JOIN OUR ZAZENKAI LIVE:
The festivities will begin [PLEASE REMEMBER DAYLIGHT SAVINGS CHANGES] at 11pm Japan time Sunday (that is New York 10am, Minnesota 9am, Los Angeles 7am, London 3pm and Paris 4pm, all Sunday March, 22nd). Our sitting schedule will look like this ... perhaps 30 minutes of Zazen, a little Kinhin, a Talk by Ben for 25 minutes or so, and some Questions from our participants. I anticipate the the event will be about 90 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the Q&A.
Of course, the Zazenkai will be recorded and available to sit 'real time' at any time thereafter.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PARTICIPATE LIVE 'TWO-WAY' BY GOOGLE+ HANGOUT:
I will try to have TWO HANGOUTS going simultaneously on two separate computers and separate wifi routers (I believe I can avoid technical issues with the second group that happened in the past). If you feel you are a person who would like to attend, are familiar with Google+, and have a reliable computer and good internet connection, please post in this thread that you would like to attend and can commit to attend at that time. (If you have any question on how to sign up for Google+, please PM DOSHO or SHINGEN and we will do our best to get you up to speed by Sunday)
We have 8 seats in the main Hangout, and up to 9 seats available in the second Hangout. We will also accept a waiting list of folks in case there is need. I will announce Hangout assignments this weekend, and provide further instructions for getting in.
If you wish to sit live, but only One Way instead of Two Way, the Zazenkai will be livecast on Youtube for one way viewing, and I will be accepting Questions for Ben via email during the Zazenkai, if you have. Remember, our way is "Not One Not Two Way!"
It would be great to fill our hangouts and have a big turnout. I NEED AS MANY FOLKS AS POSSIBLE, ESPECIALLY THOSE FAMILIAR WITH HANGOUTS, WHO CAN COMMIT TO JOIN US LIVE FOR THIS ZAZENKAI! If you are interested and commit can come, please post in this thread. It will be worth your time.
Please make sure you state clearly "have Google+ and hope to sit in Hangout". Otherwise I will be confused about who is joining one way.
In fact ... where will we be sitting? Why, in the boundless Grass Hut right along with Master Shitou, of course!
Gassho, Jundo
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Originally Posted by Jundo
