| Getting started | Events & schedule | Practice | Teachings | Community | ||||||
| about azc | links | directions | contact | membership | ||||||
 |
|||||||||||||
 |
|
|
|||||||||||
|
 Austin Zen Center is primarily a practice community for people who live householder lives with family, jobs and responsibilities outside of the Zen practice environment. Our Guest Student Program offers short-term opportunities for people to experience living in a Zen practice place. Guest Students practice through daily zazen, study, work, close contact with a teacher and intimate association with fellow practitioners. The opportunity to live and practice together is rare and demands a great deal of patience, effort, concentration, mindfulness, and ethical awareness. It offers a way of life that deepens one’s ability to be present for one’s life and to develop the compassion to live for the benefit of all beings, in a way that no other practice can.
Ideally guest students will be unencumbered during the term of residency by outside affairs (financial, familial, romantic, etc.) to the extent that they can participate in virtually all Zen Center activities, will need to spend little time away from the center and can settle naturally into the practice life of the center. Nevertheless, it is recognized that outside obligations will exist for some, especially around an outside means of support. There is a daily fee and the student is required to sit all the periods of zazen and join in the work, and encouraged to use the library, go to classes when they are offered, participate in study period and other zen practice activities. Some people like to come before a one day sitting and stay after, giving themselves a rich experience of everyday residential practice. Stays are temporary. We will review how the experience is working. These discussions will take place at the end of the first week, the end of the first month, three months. Six months to, occasionally a year or two, will be the longest time for a guest student in residence here with very rare exceptions. A guest student should be sure to have a place to return at the end of the guest residency. Our primary expectation is that students: follow the schedule and forms, help with house keeping and learn formal zendo roles. Meals are a combination of “self” cooking and meals that are prepared for the group. Food is provided. A resident committee may consider applications in detail for longer stays. The terms and conditions of residential practice at AZC are described in the "Standards for Guest Students," linked below. Please read this thoroughly before considering applying for residency. Alongside guest students we are now accepting renters to live at AZC. Renters pay rent for a room, are expected to be serious Zen practioners able to benefit from living at a place of practice, but have fewer practice obligations than normal residents. Living as a renter is appropriate for someone who has strong work or family commitments that preclude full-time practice, although renters are not specifically excluded from any part of the practice life enjoyed by normal residents. Communicate with Guest Students' Director with questions or to apply for short-term or long-term residency or for a renter situation. More Information. Application to be a Guest Student at Austin Zen Center. |
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||