Zen Practices for Developing Insight

Course Outline:

Whatever our practice may be it is important to feel strong and grounded. As the Zen Master Dogen says, we should have 'the legs of a donkey and the face of a Buddha'! There's an implication that we can be firmly rooted in reality rather than running away with our minds.

The practices we'll explore this week are aimed at developing awareness of our internal compass, our intution, the innate ability we have to feel our way through the world rather than constantly trying to work everything out. Your mind needs a holiday too!

Based on the book 'Practical Zen' by Daizan Roshi, my teacher, who taught me how to teach this course.

What we'll cover:

• Looking at the adventure of meditation
• Using anchors in meditation practice
• How we can transform energy
• Learning to tune in to our bodies
• Keeping our feet on the ground and giving our minds a break
• Self compassion
• We'll take a short walk in order to practice tuning in to how the world feels

Biography

Hello, I'm Kim and I started Serenity Retreat back in 2010. I am a big fan of meditation and mindfulness practices because of my own experience in how useful they've been in smoothing my relationship to life's lumps and bumps I'm not saying that everything becomes sweetness and light once we start with these practices, but for sure I don't take things anywhere near as personally as I used to and, in general, life feels as though it's flowing more easily - hurray! I've also become much better at trusting my internal satnav.

I have really come to love Zen for its straightforward, clear seeing approach. It asks us to get right to the heart of the matter - what's our DIRECT experience of life? I try my best to pass this on in my own words until it's time for the words to stop and simply sit. As much as I love Zen, I have also come to see that there are some other beautiful practices out there in the world and that there is space for all of it. So I've cherry picked over the years. Our own experience, after all, is our greatest guide.