Zen Open Circle Purpose and Guidelines

Purpose

Zen Open Circle exists to enable and support Zen practice and study at all levels through shared meditation, regular access to teaching, retreats for intensive practice, and other community activities.

Each aspect of our structure and program aims to respect, tend and develop the three key relationships which support this journey of waking up – the three Buddhist treasures of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

The first is each student’s relationship to their own bodhicitta – the mysterious pull that draws us to the path and helps us endure and be in there for the long haul. Bodhicitta is the seed, the sapling and mature great tree that shelters our practice of waking up.  Our relationship to our own practice is the treasure of Buddha.

The second is each student’s individual relationship with the teacher, a co-creative space known only to the two people concerned, and with the teachings, encountered in talks, koan enquiry, reading and deepening practice. The student-teacher relationship is at the core of the treasure of Dharma.

Finally, the relationship of each of us with the friends and companions with whom we walk the Way, the tending of community harmony and a widening relationship with the world and with all beings, is the treasure of Sangha.