welcome to
zen open circle
an Australian zen community
A monk asked the wonderful old Tang dynasty master Zhaozhou, ‘What is meditation?’
Zhazhou assured them, ‘It’s not meditation’.
A little alarmed, they asked, ‘Then what is it?’
‘It’s alive’, he responded. ‘It’s alive!’
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you are welcome here
Zen Open Circle is a community of Zen students who meet, study, collaborate and wake up together. We offer both face-to-face and online events to deepen your experience of Zen. With creativity, humour and radical inquiry we explore our lives and Zen practice in the light of the most pressing issues of our time, including climate change, pandemic, inequality and our relationship to place. If you are longing to meet your life with genuine curiosity and humility, you will find yourself welcome here.​​
Find out more about who we are, what we do, and upcoming events. You can contact us at gassho@zenopencircle.org.au
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A monk asked Zhaozhou, "What is sangha
(Zen community)?"
Zhaozhou said, "What made you think there was ever anything else?"
The monk asked, "What is a person of sangha?"
Zhaozhou said, "Me and you."
acknowledgement of country
We acknowledge that every place we walk, sit down, drink, eat, breathe and sleep within this continent Australia is not a ‘thing’ but country – a lived mystery of the sentient kinship that creates every detail of place, held in mind and tended by the tens of thousands of generations of people who walk before and with us.
We just accept our indebtedness to them, past, present and future, with respect and gratitude for this 60,000-year deep tap-root in time and refined awareness.
