The day’s events will include instructions in sitting meditation (zazen), walking meditation (kinhin), personal interviews and support through sharing of experiences. Guidance about setting up regular daily practice will be included.

So the crux of zazen (meditation) is this:  all we must do is constantly create a little shift from the spinning world we’ve got in our heads to right here now. . . . Zen training is designed to enable us to live comfortable beneficial lives. But the only people who live comfortably are those who learn not to dream their lives away, but to be with what’s right-here-now, no matter what it is; good, bad, nice, not nice, having a headache, being ill, being happy. It doesn’t make any difference.

From Everyday Zen: Love and Work, by Charlotte Joko Beck

Elihu Genmyo Smith began his Zen training in 1974 and received Dharma Transmission (authorization to teach) in 1992 from Charlotte Joko Beck. He is co-founder of the ordinary Mind Zen School and the resident teacher at the Prairie Zen Center, Champaign IL,  www. prairiezen.org.

Elihu’s book Everything is the Way: Ordinary Mind Zen will be published in June and available through Shambhala Publications.

Date: Saturday, February 11th, 2012
Time: 9:00 am to 4:00 pm; lunch break 11:30 to 12:30
Cost: $35.00

For questions, please contact Steve McCabe, (708) 748-6914, or Sue Sommers Faegre, (847) 869-1969.

Wetlands Zen Group of Homewood

(Affiliated with Prairie Zen Center, Champaign IL)