Dear Friends, 

This is an invitation from the  Awakening Together Zen Community in the Twin Cities (MN) to participate in the one-day Spring Online Retreat coming up on March 11. You can find the details below:

Meeting on Equal Ground - Community as an Expression of Buddha Nature

Awakening Together Zen Community

Spring Online Retreat with Flint Sparks

March 11, 2023

The entirety of the Zen path is wholly relational through and through. Our engagement in Sangha practice reflects this relationality, and this is where we come to realize that spiritual community is the living, embodied expression of Buddha nature — meeting life as it is, together.  We know that spiritual community requires not only our mindful attention, but the everyday enactment of our deepest intentions to foster harmony and to engage in everyday problem solving. We arrive in sangha from such varied backgrounds, with a diversity of life experience, bringing with us different understandings of meditation, and yet we feel that something universal is always drawing us together. How do we cultivate a vibrant community, grounded in the precepts, with an orientation towards ongoing maturity, both personally and relationally? Relational practice will deeply challenge and loosen our limited personal perspectives while encouraging the realization of the universal connectedness which is our actual life. Sangha supports this collective waking up and growing up, so how might we best foster the sort of relationality in which we can not only be fully ourselves but, at the same time, offer wholehearted care to one another? This is the bodhisattva’s work, to continually transform the world through kindness and compassionate action. During this one day retreat, we will explore the concept of community within the Zen tradition.

Schedule:

The retreat will take place in the Cloud Zendo from 9 AM to 5 PM CST, with a break for lunch between 12-1 CST.  The morning practice period will be led by members of Awakening Together Zen Community.  Flint will join us for the afternoon practice period, dharma talk, and inquiry period.  A more detailed description will be shared in advance of the retreat.  

Registration:

Registration can be completed here: https://forms.gle/aD9DAN2ahirjimZE7

Payment/Cost: 

The registration process will include an invitation to offer dana directly to our teacher, Flint Sparks.  There will not be additional registration fees.  More information on the practice of dana can be found within the registration form.

Partial Attendance:

We have had a couple of inquiries about whether it is appropriate to attend only part of the online intensive/retreat.  We would invite you to attend as much of the retreat as allowed by your schedule and you are welcome to join us if you are only able to attend the morning or the afternoon segments of the retreat.

More Information to come:

We will share additional details for the schedule, handouts, and the Zoom link for the retreat as we draw nearer to the day of the retreat.

We hope that you will consider joining us in the Cloud Zendo on 11 March for an opportunity for practice, teaching, reflection, and connection.  

With love, 

Awakening Together

A Zen Practice Community based in the Twin Cities MN https://www.awakeningtogetherzen.org/