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
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.
Please use the button:
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:
Fall Class
The Heart Sutra:
Untying the Knot of Zen’s Central Scripture
Four Tuesdays, September 9- 30, 6:00-7:30pm CST, via Zoom, $99
The Back Story
By request (okay, several requests); finally, a class on the Heart Sutra!
One of the core scriptures in Mahayana Buddhism, the Heart Sutra is chanted by millions of devotees every day, all around the world.
Some cry when they first hear it, even though they don’t understand a word of it. Some are immediately (and understandably) confused by it, or even irritated by its seemingly nonsensical assertions (“no eyes, no nose, no body, no mind…”). Its expression of the spiritual path is undeniably evocative.
It’s also blasphemous, gentle, heretical, reassuring, and unassailably steadfast in its faith.
At just a few short paragraphs, this one-page teaching sums of all of Buddhism, throws it all out, then carries it carefully back in to offer it to us with tender hands, born anew. It is both a thunderbolt and a shower of lotus petals.
Perhaps more than anything, it’s an invitation to see your life- and all of life- in a completely different way.
A triumph of both left-brain logic and right-brained creative intuition, the Heart Sutra has spoken to hundreds of generations of Buddhist practitioners, being chanted at private liturgies and public ceremonies like weddings and funerals alike.
Said to contain the most essential and core teachings and spirit of the Buddha’s lifetime of teaching, the Heart Sutra is one of the most beautiful, expansive, and puzzling expressions in all of world religion.
For many of us, an ongoing relationship with the Heart Sutra is like sitting in a warm and gentle Spring rain. Slowly but surely, it soaks us through, rounding the edges of the stones and wears the mountain of our usual ego functioning down; gently, patiently, little by little.
We come to trust its spirit, and we can grow to feel that its intention for us is an abiding, expansive sense of freedom.
The Class
We’ll spend our four too-short weeks covering the text of the Heart Sutra, exploring its references, teaching, and spirit. Let’s see if we can begin to understand and appreciate its invitation to us.
As always, the practical everyday life applications for all the teachings will be discussed in class and sent out afterward via email, along with any resources or references that might be useful to you. During our time together, participants will be encouraged to ask questions, share insights, and connect the class material to the experience of everyday life. Together, we’ll feel our way into meeting the Noble Eightfold Path; sometimes with discussion, sometimes with teachings, sometimes with exercises… but always with acceptance and empathy.
PLEASE NOTE: 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 four Tuesdays, Sept. 9-30, 6:00-7:30pmCST, via Zoom. The fee is $99. 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 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!
Retreats
Deepen your practice with these immersions in silence.
Half-day Retreats
Regularly on a Saturday, 9am-3pm,
in person at Aslan Institute
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.