« A Retreat in the Heart of Life » (Retraite au Coeur de la Vie)
Date: Nov. 19-24
Place: Wherever you are
Wherever you are, life is there! How could Zen practice be anywhere else? Take a plunge into the heart of your life just as it is. This is a superb opportunity to live Zen practice and your entire life as one endlessly vibrant and creative improvisation. No special organization needed!
Come join the sitting in Paris (on Monday and Friday nights, and all day Saturday) or sit wherever you are — at home, in London, Porto, Lisbon, East Timor, Melbourne, New York — whenever you can. Everything you do all week is part of this retreat! Follow teachings and participants’ daily experiences on the zenscribe blog.
schedule:
morning meditation: 7h30-8h30, Monday-Friday; 9h30-18h Saturday
evening meditation: 20h-22h, Monday-Thursday, 19h45-21h15, Friday
Details, information and « registration » (required): zenscribe@free.fr
Good morning grey sky and metal rooftops…good morning cushion and incense stick… good morning silence…good morning everyone…
Day 2: A hard day to practice, or maybe an interesting day to practice. A disciplinary hearing, a lawyer, egos fighting, a high-ranked person assuming a child’s posture when being reprehended, my sense of victory, his pain, my joy… Was I compashionate? No, I missed it completly.
bonjour 🙂
je suis la toujour quand c’ést possible, hier soir, aujourd’hui le premier periode……. a tout a l’heur
Présence Partagée
Shared Presence (?)
I bow.
Gooong…good morning…so many scents around that I have not been noticing, in the kitchen, in the bathroom…lots of thoughts and dreams, mind running and yet, lots of stillness…and so much time for everything
Good morning, co-sitters… My cat began much earlier, on the zafu, waiting for all of us. Such a joy being in this second world-wide retreat in the heart of life. After a moment of surprise to learn about this retreat just one day before it starts, it became evident…in fact, we could say that every day, every moment: welcome in the retreat in the heart of life. With love, Wild flower Sophie.
Memories flashing back all the time. Am I there? Am I here? Am I everywhere? … The most puzzling is: where the heck am I in time?
Sitting after the day’s work, facing as usual the blank white wall of the bedroom. The images and words of the day mixed with the ocasional buzzing sound of the refrigerator, the cats eating on the far side of the corridor, the distant hum of the last buses. How can everything be so clear, even with the coming sleepiness? Bowed before and after sitting to everyone participating in the retreat, which is everyone, sitting or not sitting.
Very happy for this heart of life retreat – had not been sitting for a while but yesterday evening decided to sit, the same this morning, having forgotten that the retreat had already started, so I’m still ‘in’ it, more than I thought I were… 🙂 guess that we were all sitting together in one way or the other – have been feeling lightness during most of the day, and tonight was very happy again to rejoin the Paris group at Joa’s after a long absence. And there I was, ‘in’ it again, never ‘out’, how could it be otherwise?…:)
I usually have a terrible time getting up in the morning, but I was up today to sit with you all…
Actually, I’m not sure i was really up, I think sleep accompanied me to the cushion… I did notice him though, and also the sky getting lighter, a winter grey light.
off to sit again now and i hope to be a bit more here and now.
Sat this morning with you at some point. The telephone sang, the laptop wind blown and I believe my landlady said something in a language I could not understand – the world in sounds.
Tired this morning as I rolled out of bed and sat "wall-gazing," as the cat stretched out asleep behind me and as the "wall" of the world unfolded before me: a thousand leaves, light wind and rain, gray sky, cold foot, a police siren, sounds of breakfast preparation in the kitchen.
And all the while with you all.
Day one. I am behing schedule by one hour in the morning and I will be by two in the evening. But that’s not important. We will be praticing together one way or another.
Being in Timor Leste "I am ahead" in time. The work day is almost reaching the end. I ask myself: "Did I use all that the day has brought me to make the most out it?" I will go home soon and other demands wiill arise.