Investigating Your Life: Working With the Sixteen Zen Bodhisattva Precepts
Investigating Your Life:
Working With the Sixteen Zen Bodhisattva Precepts
A 6-Class Series • Zoom & In-person
Saturdays, September 21; October 5, 12 & 26; November 2 & 23
1:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m.
Led by Sensei Tom Dharma-Joy Reichert, ZCLA’s Abbot and Head Priest/Preceptor.
Class Details
The 16 Zen Bodhisattva Precepts are a foundational aspect of practice. Maezumi Roshi described the precepts as “aspects of life” and our study of the precepts will be an investigation of our own lives. We will become acquainted with the precepts and their various aspects, and then look at how they manifest in our own lives. While the classes involve some lecturing, a large portion of each class is devoted to sharing our own experiences of investigating how the precepts are functioning in our own lives.
In addition to our own workbook, we will use Nancy Mujo Baker’s Opening to Oneness: A Practical and Philosophical Guide to the Zen Precepts; we have copies available to purchase (or you can purchase it on your own).
- Beginners are welcome.
- This class is a prerequisite to receive Jukai (taking refuge and formally receiving the precepts through a ceremony for Lay Buddhist Ordination) from a preceptor at ZCLA.
- Because precept practice is a core practice at ZCLA, everyone is encouraged to take this series at some point, even if you have no interest in Jukai.
- Those who have taken the precept class before are welcome to take it again.
For those interested in receiving Jukai, there will be a separate two-class series in early 2025 focused on Jukai; it will be scheduled later.
Class Fee
ZOOM PARTICIPANTS: $150 for Members; $240 for Non-Members
Includes Precepts & Study Workbook text (digital copy only).
IN-PERSON PARTICIPANTS: $175 members; $300 Non-Members
Includes Precepts & Study Workbook text (digital and printed copy).
Reading
Opening to Oneness
by Nancy Mujo Baker
Stop trying to become “better” by suppressing or hiding parts of yourself, and learn what it means to be fully human with this accessible guide to the core ethical teachings of Zen Buddhism.
In Opening to Oneness, Zen teacher Nancy Baker offers a detailed path of practice for Zen students planning to take the precepts and for anyone, Buddhist or non-Buddhist, interested in deepening their personal study of ethical living. She reveals that there are three levels of each precept: a literal level (don’t kill, not even a bug), a relative level that takes moral ambiguity into account (what if it’s a malaria-spreading mosquito?), and an ultimate level—the paradoxical level of nonduality, in which the precepts are naturally expressed from a state of oneness.
The Zen Center policy is to turn no one away for lack of funds. If you have concerns about payments click here to request Dharma Training Fund. If you have any other questions, please contact Myoki at programsteward@zcla.org.
Sensei Tom Dharma-Joy Reichert first came to ZCLA in 1999. He was installed as ZCLA’s Head Priest and Preceptor in April 2022 and became ZCLA’s fifth Abbot in May 2023.