“Zen” is a word that has been co-opted and integrated into our everyday vocabulary, taking on multiple meanings such as: chill, minimal, elegant and calm. But what is Zen, really?
"Zen is a training,
but not a taming."
Teisui Sensei
Zen is both a training and a full inhabitation of our humanity. By directly experiencing the life force and liberation always here now, we naturally respond as unconditioned compassion toward this moment, as it is.
"I don't know who I am, but I'm confident about what my function is: to be compassionate to this One Life."
~ Butsudo Sensei
What might happen right now if you open and extend attention, feel sensations in the body, and soften self-consciousness and the inner critic? What might this moment be like experienced freshly?
If these inquiries pique your curiosity, cause your heart to stir, or induce a longing for a more intimate connection to this life, The Vital Way is an opportunity to explore and experience what Zen is and how it could radically inform your life.
“To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be verified by all things. ”
~Eihei Dogen Zenji
It’s our privilege to welcome you to the path, and then point beyond it. Throughout 6 weeks in The Vital Way (Part 1), we will lay frameworks and invite experiential participation in the following key topics in Zen practice:
Week 1:
What is Zen? In our first meeting, we will explore aspects of Zen - direct experience, vitality, becoming completely one with our internal and external circumstances, and attuned, compassionate functioning.
Week 2: Perspectives We will take a tour of the three fundamental perspectives of I, We, and It. By recognizing and refining our awareness of these perspectives, we will develop skill and nuance in our ability to interpret and communicate our experience and clarify our relationships with self, others, and the world.
Week 3: Senses and Thinking In the third week, we will explore how we connect with the world via seeing, hearing, touch, taste, smell, proprioception, and thought. By clarifying how our senses and thoughts operate, we will start to experience our oneness and interdependence with all of Reality.
{ Week Off: Rest and Integration }
Week 4: Feeling and Emotion In this class, we will investigate the spectrum of sensation to feeling to emotion to mood to personality. We will look at ways of becoming more emotionally mature, engaging feelings and emotions as information for our choices and vital fuel for our actions. (Based on the work of Diane Musho Hamilton Roshi)
Week 5: Zazen (1) With the context provided from the first four weeks, we will establish and practice the physical posture, breathing and relaxation of zazen (“sitting zen”). We will also explore some of the obstacles to engaging a consistent sitting practice such as motivation, lack of flexibility, pain, and distraction.
Week 6: Zazen (2) Having established the physical vehicle for zazen, we will explore the artful practice of shikantaza ( “just sitting”) and the balance of simply being willing to sit still regardless of experience and the relaxed, concentrated state of samadhi (complete identification with Awareness itself).
Investment:
$180, $270, $360 USD
Please choose the price that works with your current financial context
(limited number of scholarships available ~ priority given to current students, BIPOC, and those with financial constraints)
YOUR TEACHERS ARE:
Brooke Teisui McNamara Sensei
Brooke Teisui McNamara Sensei is a Zen teacher, lineage holder, and poet. She has practiced as a student of Diane Musho Hamilton Roshi since 2010, receiving monk ordination in 2012 and Dharma Transmission in 2023. Prior to 2010, she was a student of nondual teacher and poet, Dorothy S. Hunt. Brooke has published two books of poems: Bury the Seed and Feed Your Vow, and has taught at Naropa University in Yoga Studies and CU Boulder in Dance. She holds an MFA, and teaches in-person and online courses and retreats to facilitate the awakening of innate wisdom, compassion, artistry, and play. She lives with her husband and two sons in Boulder, CO.
Brian Butsudo Turner Sensei
Butsudo Sensei has been practicing Zen in the White Plum branch of the Soto lineage for over fifteen years. He received monk ordination in 2012 and Dharma Transmission in 2023 from Diane Musho Hamilton Roshi. He does his best to present the Dharma with warmth, humor and pragmatism. Butsudo loves the forms and rituals of Zen practice provided they are inhabited with intention and relaxation. He lives in Erie with his wife and daughter and has two adult children. Brian has a Ph.D. in physics and currently works as an engineer in an optics manufacturing company.