Monthly Mindfulness Practice Group
Our most popular regular offering
Offered monthly on Saturday, 9:00-11:30am, via Zoom
Check the calendar for the current schedule.
Appropriate for beginners and experienced meditators alike, our monthly drop-in group features meditation, teaching, experiential, and group discussion. It's an informal gathering that explores basic mindfulness and self-awareness practices in a "lightly-Zen" (mostly secular/spiritual) sense. There's usually around a dozen of us, and it's usually a combo of more experienced folks and pretty new folks. We usually start and end with a short, silent sitting. We have a theme/teaching portion, and an exercise or two designed to help us see something we might not otherwise. Bring a journal or notebook.
Each group is recorded, and the link sent to all participants as a resource to revisit later if desired.
A relaxed a friendly atmosphere, perfect for exploration.
Suggested donation $30-40. No registration required; all are welcome!
For the Zoom link, click here.
Dharma Talk Saturdays
One Saturday a month, 8:30-9:45am CT. (Please check the calendar for the schedule.)
Join us
one Saturday a month for a public talk on a meditation-adjacent topic.
Come at 9:00 just for the talk, or come at 8:30 and join us for the sitting, too.
Here's our format:
8:30-9:00 Open, shared silent meditation
9:00 Non-boring Dharma talk
9:25 Questions and Discussion
9:45 End
Online via Zoom, free and open to the public, freewill offering by donation.
Drop-in, no registration required; all are welcome:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84846144748
Book Study Group
The FCZ Book Study Group meets once a month on a Saturday, 9:30-10:30amCT, immediately after the Saturday Meditation Community. A welcoming and curious atmosphere, perfect for newcomers and experienced folks alike.
Co-lead by our own Leah and Joan. Please join us!
Check the calendar for the current schedule.
For registration, the Zoom link, and more information, just click the button to email the facilitator:
Spring Class
The Feminine Face of Buddha:
Learning from Female Dharma Voices
Six Tuesdays, May 12-June 16, 6:00-7:30pm CST, via Zoom, $149
The Back Story
From the beginning of the Buddhist Sangha with the timeless thunderbolt of Mahapajapati’s courage and devotion, up to the present day with its plethora of powerful feminine teaching voices, the tradition of Dharma has had a feminine voice to balance its masculine voice.
And, like other religious and spiritual traditions of the world, the feminine voice has most often been diminished, sidelined, or even outright ignored in both formal teaching lineages and informal teaching traditions.
Much being done in contemporary Buddhist practice communities to begin to rectify this imbalance, and to begin to avail ourselves of the immense wealth of wisdom and beauty of the feminine Dharmic expression that has been preserved and passed down to us. That's our intention, too.
The Class
We’ll spend six weeks exploring koans and poems by and about some of our female Dharma Ancestors, emphasizing the non-analytical and intuitive leaps into vast insight that these teachings record, and can help us make. This class content will be a lovely counterpoint to our last class on the more stringent and masculine study of Dogen’s Fukanzazengi.
Zen’s original Chinese expressions have an amazingly balance of compassion and wisdom, feminine and masculine energies, linear and non-linear practices and expressions.
So, we’ll revel in the beauty of these poems and koans, understanding and appreciating the deep and penetrating insight into life and consciousness that their artistic and emotionally evocative craft is expressing. They are amazing!
PLEASE NOTE: As always, all are welcome to this friendly exploration. No deep knowledge of the Buddhist tradition is required. All of our explorations will be curious and thorough, and we’ll be able to speak to all levels of experience.
The Details
Class is six Tuesdays, 6:00-7:30pmCST, via Zoom. The fee is $149. Scholarships available upon request. No required text; all readings will be provided.
All classes and course content will be recorded, so non-sequential learning and distance attendance are both possible and encouraged. You won’t miss anything.
It’s also absolutely okay to register the class only for the recordings.
The Reminder
People care about this beautiful and suffering world. They do it most powerfully and most directly by caring for their own precious inner lives. Walking the spiritual path is still a choice people make; a loving response to the human condition that people still choose. This will be a gentle, sincere, unique, and collective inquiry, and will help us develop creative day-to-day mindfulness practices so that we more deeply experience and appreciate our precious and fleeting lives.
Please join us and spread the ripple by bringing a friend!
Introduction to Zen Meditation class
Are you new to meditation or Zen Buddhism?
FCZ offers an Intro to Zen Meditation class by registration bimonthly on Saturday mornings,
from 9:45 – 10:45 a.m. CT via Zoom.
This beginner-friendly class focuses on the instructions for Zen meditation (zazen) and also includes some basic Buddhist principles to help us connect our meditation practice to our daily lives.
You are welcome to attend this Intro class as often you like, as the teaching parts vary from class to class.
This is an ongoing, drop-in class that is open to the public.
There is a suggested donation of $10-20.
Please see the website calendar for the upcoming dates.
NOTE: Registration at least three days in advance is required for this class so you have time to review some helpful material ahead of time.
Half-day Retreats
Regularly on a Saturday, 9am-3pm,
in person at Episcopal House of Prayer, Collegeville, and via Zoom
Our silent Half-day Meditation Retreats are six hours in length and feature sitting meditation, walking meditation, a short dharma teaching talk, and the option of meeting one-to-one with the teacher.
Appropriate for beginners and experienced contemplatives alike, these simple retreats are user-friendly, restorative, and often profound.
$40/person
Check the calendar for the next one and join us to discover what a big difference a few short hours of silence can make.