UPCOMING: "Illuminating the Heart: Art Can Show the Way" with Lizzie Coombs JDPSN

Join us live or via recording for "Illuminating the Heart: Art Can Show the Way" as Lizzie Coombs JDPSN guides us through two classes about how artistic works can speak to our own spiritual life. 

Session One / October 4 / 12 PM Eastern
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Hokusai: “My Master is Creation”
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), best known for his print ‘The Great Wave’, was a prolific and highly accomplished artist with a life-long devotion to spiritual practice. We will see how the two connect and how his work speaks to our own spiritual life. We will also look at the materials and techniques he used and how they inform his work.

Session Two / October 18 / 12 PM Eastern
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Mirror and Moon: Yoshitoshi, Hiroshige et al
A look at how other 19th century Japanese artists articulated their response to all aspects of human life and to the natural world. A selection of prints and drawings expressing humour, compassion, wonder and all the drama of the world.

About the teacher: After receiving a B.A. in art history, Lizzie Coombs JDPSN trained as an art conservator specializing in the preservation and restoration of Japanese woodblock prints and other works of art on paper. She worked in art museums and then in private practice for 28 years. She absorbed much of what she knows about Japanese prints and paintings from the connoisseurship of her late husband, the art historian and scholar of Japanese prints, Roger Keyes. Lizzie started practicing Zen in 1987 and received inka from Zen Master Soeng Hyang in 2018. She is Guiding Teacher of York Zen Group and The Peak Zen Group in the U.K.

All classes are recorded so you can choose to join live or watch the recordings later, at your convenience. Recordings of each live session will be available within 48-hours for those who can't attend in person. The cost of the two-class series is $30 USD. Find out more and sign up below.

[ATTENTION Members of the 360 Zen Study Series: There is no need to purchase this class as it is already included in your subscription.]

We Have A Big Job To Do - Podcast with Lizzie Coombs, JDPSN

This is the episode from 26th January of Sit, Breathe, Bow with Lizzie Coombs as guest - a podcast produced by Ian White Maher:

Each week leading Buddhist teachers share life experiences and insights to help guide your meditation practice as well as your life off the cushion.

Lizzie Coombs JDPSN started practicing with the Kwan Um School of Zen in 1987. In 2010 she moved back to the United Kingdom, her country of origin. In 2018 she received inka, or permission to teach, from Zen Master Soeng Hyang. She is the Guiding Teacher of the York Zen Group and The Peak Zen Center and the Buddhist Chaplain at the University of Durham.

Sit, Breathe, Bow is hosted by Ian White Maher
https://www.theseekerstable.com/

Sit, Breathe, Bow is sponsored by the Online Sangha of the International Kwan Um School of Zen
https://kwanumzenonline.org

What's the Rush?

This piece was written by Tim Lerch, teacher in the Kwan Um School of Zen, for the Providence Zen Center newsletter in August 2005, reproduced by permission. It’s the essence of Zen.

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What’s the Rush?

Zen Master Lin Chi said, “When students fail to make progress, where’s the fault? The fault lies in the fact that they don’t have faith in themselves! If you don’t have faith in yourself, then you will always be in a hurry trying to keep up with everything around you, you’ll be twisted and turned by every environment that you’re in and you can never move freely. But if you can just stop this mind that goes rushing around moment by moment, always looking for something, then you will be no different from the patriarchs and the Buddhas. Do you want to get to know the patriarchs and the Buddhas? They are none other than you, the people standing and listening to this lecture on the dharma!”

Lin Chi said this to his students over a thousand years ago, and this teaching is just as important for us today. Our tendency as Zen students is to approach our practice the way we do most things, by trying to get something from outside to make us feel better inside. But that very tendency is the origin of our suffering! Trying this mantra, trying that technique, going to see this teacher, going to see that teacher, we are always going around and around, searching outside of ourselves for a fix. Approached this way, Zen or any other kind of practice only results in more suffering and confusion. But Master Lin Chi gave us the key: “Just stop this mind that goes rushing around.” How do we do this? Thinking about stopping the mind only creates more movement, more turmoil. But when we look into the question “What am I?” this question leads us to our before-thinking mind, don’t know. This is how we “just stop this mind that goes rushing around.”

When we return to don’t know, our minds become clear. Clear mind sees, hears, smells, feels, perceives, and functions clearly just as it is. This is great substance and great function, our original job. Any environment, tumultous or calm, is just how it is - complete. There is no need to rush around and around looking for something. Everything is complete, moment to moment, just as it is. There is no fault and no progress. This is called having faith in yourself, getting to know the Buddhas and the patriarchs, and moving freely in this world. This is also called the great bodhisattva way.