About Us
To speak of Zen Buddhism is to speak of meditation. Literally, the word Zen (transliterated from sanskrit) means meditation, or more loosely, concentration. Many people today have some idea of what meditation is, and have perhaps even participated in it; yet there are many misconceptions prevalent concerning the nature of the practice.
Interestingly, meditation is very simple and not complex. One can be taught to meditate in basic form in a mere matter of minutes: sit down, quiet down and pay attention. But why do this? Zen meditation simply means how you keep your mind, moment-by-moment, moment-after-moment. It's very easy to become ensnared as slaves to our own minds, dwelling oft in an alternate reality of convoluted thoughts that prevent us from moving through our lives with any sort of simplicity, ease or bliss. That being said, the practice of the Beyond Walls Zen community centers around one question, do you control your thoughts or do your thoughts control you?
Over 2500 years ago a man names Siddhartha Gautama (who would later become known throughout the world as “the Buddha”) awoke to the realization that all things are created by the mind, and the mind alone. Our happiness and sadness, our anger and elation, our joy and sorrow are all cut from a common fabric of passing phenomena that the mind processes in dichotomy as either good or bad, like or dislike, pain or pleasure.
However, according to Buddha, in actuality there is no dichotomy, there is only one unchanging reality that we all share in common experience. This universal reality is innately wonder-filled and abounding with bliss. Yet, many people lead lives filled with stress, despair, perpetual dissatisfaction and unsatisfactory-ness. Therefore, the process of meditation means to move beyond our thinking minds and into the realm heart felt intuition and wisdom perceived in the way things actually are. Thus, Zen might be defined as a means to secede from the cycle of suffering, and to embrace in direct experience this cessation as transcendent and awake being-ness.
The Beyond Walls Zen group seeks to explore and integrate the teachings of the Buddha from a pragmatic perspective, in a contemporary and relaxed setting. Zen Buddhism is non-religious, devoid of any form of worship or deity homage; rather Zen is a process acutely focused on the practical realization of engaged, fulfilled, compassionate and joyous living through present-minded awareness, acceptance and action.
Interestingly, meditation is very simple and not complex. One can be taught to meditate in basic form in a mere matter of minutes: sit down, quiet down and pay attention. But why do this? Zen meditation simply means how you keep your mind, moment-by-moment, moment-after-moment. It's very easy to become ensnared as slaves to our own minds, dwelling oft in an alternate reality of convoluted thoughts that prevent us from moving through our lives with any sort of simplicity, ease or bliss. That being said, the practice of the Beyond Walls Zen community centers around one question, do you control your thoughts or do your thoughts control you?
Over 2500 years ago a man names Siddhartha Gautama (who would later become known throughout the world as “the Buddha”) awoke to the realization that all things are created by the mind, and the mind alone. Our happiness and sadness, our anger and elation, our joy and sorrow are all cut from a common fabric of passing phenomena that the mind processes in dichotomy as either good or bad, like or dislike, pain or pleasure.
However, according to Buddha, in actuality there is no dichotomy, there is only one unchanging reality that we all share in common experience. This universal reality is innately wonder-filled and abounding with bliss. Yet, many people lead lives filled with stress, despair, perpetual dissatisfaction and unsatisfactory-ness. Therefore, the process of meditation means to move beyond our thinking minds and into the realm heart felt intuition and wisdom perceived in the way things actually are. Thus, Zen might be defined as a means to secede from the cycle of suffering, and to embrace in direct experience this cessation as transcendent and awake being-ness.
The Beyond Walls Zen group seeks to explore and integrate the teachings of the Buddha from a pragmatic perspective, in a contemporary and relaxed setting. Zen Buddhism is non-religious, devoid of any form of worship or deity homage; rather Zen is a process acutely focused on the practical realization of engaged, fulfilled, compassionate and joyous living through present-minded awareness, acceptance and action.
