Dear Sangha members and friends,
Here it is March, and the third New Year of the new year (Losar) has been celebrated, so I figure the New Year is well and truly launched and it’s time to send word to you.
The first word I want to send is thank you. With your generous contributions to Springs Mountain Sangha (including both funding and volunteering time and talent) and with the spirit, creativity and open heart of your practice, you yourselves bring forth the Three Treasures.
With your bodies on cushions and chairs in meditation and walking the world, you give rise to Awakening.
With your studies, your conversations and with your support of my work as your teacher and talks by Andrew Palmer, Sensei, you offer and support the Dharma.
With your participation and leadership at meditations, classes, gatherings and retreats, not to mention your work in the wider community, you create the Sangha.
We say at the end of our Monday evenings, “You are needed, and what you do matters.” This is really true. Deep thanks to you.
The second word I want to send to you is PRACTICE PERIOD!
Our practice period is under way, in this wonderful time when 5 inches of snow can land one day and 68 degrees of sun warmth can show up the next!
It’s a great time for fresh starts, and that’s part of what a practice period is. A time to be gloriously, cheerfully a beginner again.
Here are some notes about how we, your sangha, are undertaking this period of new beginnings and deep delvings.
Wishing you a time of renewal and discovery,
Sarah Bender
SMS During Practice Period
During practice period, we focus on deepening and strengthening practice, both individually and as a community. You will make your own commitment for your practice period and a number of supports for practice period will be offered.
On Monday evenings during practice period, after we close up the hall, some people will be going down to Rico’s for additional informal conversation time. All are welcome! Likewise, people often share breakfast after sitting on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.
It can be very helpful during a practice period to pair up with a buddy to encourage and support your regular meditation practice. Please let one of the practice leaders know if you would like some help connecting with a practice buddy.
Koan practice groups will meet with Sarah Bender, Roshi on March 7, March 14, March 21, April 11, April 18, and April 25. 10 AM to Noon, 7528 Jenkin Place.These are open to everyone.
info: sembender@gmail.com
Occasionally other offerings pop up. Announcements will come out by email, so if you want to know about them, get on the email list by visiting www.smszen.org.
There will also be some offerings posted on our Springs Mountain Sangha facebook page.
If you’d like more information or have questions about these offerings, please feel free to contact Kelly McFarland at S.Kelly.HLS@gmail.com .
and here below, reprinted for your convenience, are schedule notes from our March newsletter:
Saturday, March 7, 8 AM: Zen Threads talk by Kathryn McWilliams
Monday, March 9: Community Night.
March can be so cold in Colorado, way past Christmas! Please bring any blankets, warm clothing, socks, school supplies, personal care items you’d like to donate. We will bundle and deliver them.
Monday March 9: 5:15 “Holding Your Seat” A good time to attend if you are new to our sangha and would like some orientation to meditation and our customs.
Monday, March 16: Dharma Talk, Sarah Bender
Tuesday, March 17: 6:30-8:30 PM- Ecodharma Group at Creek Bend
Great Master Ma and Shitou Xiqian meet Our Time of Crisis: What is it to “do what cannot be done, remedy what cannot be remedied” in this time of ours? Everyone is welcome!
Saturday, March 21: Work in the Room with Sarah Bender, Roshi
Monday March 23: Dharma Talk, Andrew Palmer
Monday March 30: Wayfaring Mind talk by Regan Arntzen
~UPCOMING EVENTS~
Spring
Meditation Retreat
with Sarah Bender, Roshi
Pueblo Mt. State Park
Beulah, CO
Tough as Dragon Girl, Quick as Lingzhao:
Koans for Stepping off a Pole
May
6 – 10, 2020
Pueblo Mountain Park
Beulah, CO
Our koan tradition began in a time of chaos and horror in China to meet that impossible time and find grace, courage and freedom right in the midst of it. Koan characters: demon girl and courtesan, inkeepers and nuns, warriors and peasants, frogs and crows, snakes and dragons–we wake up with them, discovering a place to stand and a way to walk where there seems to be no ground.
The deadline for
registration is Friday, April 3 at which time full payment is due.
The late deadline for
registration is April 21 (and carries a $100 penalty).
Long retreats in our Open Source Koan Zen tradition are moments in time when we, in community, can step away for a bit, replacing the conventions of our efficient, tightly packed modern lives with the graceful simplicity of sitting and moving together, somewhat formally, in silence. The forms allow us to fall, individually and collectively, into a vastness that holds us differently——a deep quiet that invites our hearts to open and our minds to release what we’ve been clutching. In such a container, we take up the ancient stories of our koan lineage, stories that can awaken the radiance and power of our very own lives.
The cost of the retreat is as follows:
$455 for camping and (2) RV sites
$555 for a dorm room
$615 for a double room
$815 for a single room * the 10 single rooms
fill quickly
Retreat Coordinator and Registrar is:
Robert King, Retreat Registrar
P. O. Box 571
Green Mountain Falls, CO 80819
Email address: kingrh5722@gmail.com
Phone number: 719-684-0130
Registration Form:https://www.smszen.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Retreat-Registration-Form_.pdf