27/08/2026
When we opened the school 20 years ago, it was intended as a place of refuge, contemplation and community 🧡
The journey is an individual one, as what we (possibly) can control is where we place our attention🔎
Having a place to go, to step out of day-to-day life is key to this.
It is helpful to have an actual place to cultivate
✨steadiness and ease
On the surface, it can therefore seem that your practice is somehow separate from the world. To the suffering in Gaza, the impacts of colonialism here in Australia, or the quarter of the world’s population that lives in conflict-affected areas.
When we practice steadily, over time we come to see that practice is not individual. Practice allows us to take wise action in the world. 🌎
In Zen, we took the Bodhisattva Vow. It is aspirational as it comes! This vow is to help alleviate suffering- personal, interpersonal, structural. It informs the work and research we do.
We can all do what we can with what we have. Feelings of hopelessness on the path of practice are not unfamiliar.
The question becomes how can we transmute the fear, the hopelessness, the sorrow into something tangible, a way to help alleviate suffering, personal and structural. 🌸
There is no precise formula for change that will be wholeheartedly adopted by each individual in the same way.
Practice gives us the ground to do the work. That work looks and feels different over the flows and fluctuations of life. But still, these practices were not intended to isolate us all from each other, the wider community and geopolitical contexts. 🏠
Practice allows us to stay steady.
We can then consistently ask the question of not *IF* I can help but *HOW* can I help? 🤔
Love
Jean
