October Event: Heart Sutra Workshop
Saturday, October 10 & Sunday, October 11, 2015
The Heart Sūtra is the best known and most essential of the Prajñāpāramitā (Perfection of Wisdom) sūtras, works that were created in India over several centuries starting in the first century B.C.E . The foundational texts of the Mahayana Buddhist movement, these sūtras contain the core teaching of the emptiness of all aspects of our experience. The Heart Sūtra itself is of uncertain origin and date, but there were versions in China from the third century C.E. Chanted every day in Buddhist monasteries around the world, this 16-sentence text (in translation) offers a distilled version of the often vast and comprehensive Perfection of Wisdom teachings. Throughout the history of Zen in East Asia, the Heart Sūtra has been an invaluable aid to deepening practice and helping cultivate wisdom.
Join us for a weekend of study, practice, and calligraphy as we explore the principle themes of this text and put them into practice in the Zendo meditation hall. By alternating lectures, group discussion, formal Zen practice, and sūtra copying, we will learn to incorporate the insights of this profound text into our daily lives.