As the topic for the next newsletter Keizan Sensei has asked us to consider the question: ‘What emotion(s) is the most difficult for you to manage and what strategy do you use?’ Here, Anon responds: “The emotion that I find the most difficult to manage is inadequacy. I could write about the various little techniques […]
Read more…There are several techniques that we use in our meditation practice, including counting breaths or being with the breath, and koan practice. And a very important practice used in the Soto school is Shikantaza. Here, Keizan Sensei describes Shikantaza and it is is also worth listening to his talk given on 15 November 2017 in […]
Read more…Apologies but due to unforeseen circumstances the Beginners class on Sat 16 September has been cancelled. The next Beginners class will be on Saturday 14 October.
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There will be no sittings at StoneWater Zen Centre through most of August. We will re commence on the morning of Tuesday, 29th August. (This is a change to the previously posted date). The first Saturday zazenkai will be on 10 September. Please note that other groups will continue to use the centre during August. The Centre […]
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Last year at the October Crosby retreat we had a surprise attender on her first retreat. Taka Rothenberg is a delightful Japanese lady in her eighties who made her way to us by train from London. Not only did she know no one, she had never done zazen before and she had booked for the […]
Read more…You would find it difficult or even impossible to connect these two terms. But for me, it’s easy. I have to begin by reliving the life I led in my formative years and up to 1995. (Why 1995 ? I’ll come to that later.) So please excuse me if this piece is too personal or […]
Read more…StoneWater Zen Centre Liverpool 27 August 2016 Leaving the Lakes where the twin trees grow Finding your own way through fog and rain Struggling upstream over rock and boulder You have left your compass behind And as with the dancer and the dance You are coming home To where stone and water forever abide as […]
Read more…We asked two questions recently: what motivated you to follow a spiritual life? And how do you measure the benefits of practice? Here, Celia Bryan responds: What motivated me to follow a spiritual life? My mother….and Joanna Lumley. My mother has been my greatest inspiration and motivation…..because I don’t want to be like her. […]
Read more…Resistance I’m a 43 year old man who has had desk jobs in London for the last 12 years. Nice clean, shiny jobs, with glass and steel and marble floors. I am not the outdoors type. I haven’t been camping since the early 90’s, because I could think of little worse. I don’t like big […]
Read more…Imagine, where we sit in zazen every week in Liverpool was once where Bill Nighy, Julie Walters, Pete Postlethwaite, Jonathan Pryce and many other famous names in British film and theatre rehearsed when the Everyman had a repertory company. In 2002 when Sensei and I took over what is now StoneWater Zen Centre, it was […]
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