Zen Society of Wooster

Out of dank water, enlightenment unfolds.

Come sit with us

We are a group of friends who meet Monday evening for silent meditation. We practice in the Son tradition (Korean zen), sitting for two 25 minute sessions with walking meditation in between. Our teacher is Kwang Wol Son sa, Steve Berg, who received Son sa from Zen Master Dae Gak of Furnace Mountain, Kentucky, in 2004. We’d love to have you join us. If you’re new to meditation, come a few minutes early and we’ll help! Don’t be afraid of making mistakes, because we all do on occasion. Find out a little more by emailing us at ohioberg@gmail.com .

Meditation is at the heart of everything

Keep your spine straight
Keep your belly soft
Follow your breath and
Stay in the room
There is no other time but now
There is no other place than here
And there is no other one but you.

This whole life is training
Training for yourself
Living each moment
Equal to everything
Ready for anything
You are alive.

If you cannot endure this
When and where will you?

- Dae Gak, Upright with Poise and Grace

Meeting notes

Sangha notes for 9-13-2021: An excerpt from “Going Beyond Buddha” by Zen Master Dae Gak:
     Listen.     Mind is like the great sky. Awareness is like the great sky, containing everything, containing our aliveness, containing our energy, containing our sleepiness, containing our hopes, containing our delusions, containing our fears. Our whole life is contained in the great sky of being in the moment. The great sky has no meaning, and this no meaning is meaning beyond meaning, Great Meaning. Great Meaning is truth, which is compassionate action.          

MONDAY MEDITATION LOCATION:  For temporary meeting locations contact Steve Berg at ohioberg.com . We we usually meet at the Unitarian Universalists fellowship in Wooster, but their building is under construction right now.
MINI RETREATS: Saturday, Dec 11th, and Tuesday Dec 14, 8 am to 3 pm, Dalton, Ohio. Meditation, walking, chanting. To ask questions or register, contact Steve at ohioberg@gmailcom
Sangha notes for 8-23-2021: An excerpt from “Comfortable with Uncertainty” by Pema Chodron:
      Moving away from our experience, away from the present moment with all our habits and strategies, always adds up to restlessness, dissatisfaction, unhappiness. The comfort we associate with concretizing and making things so solid is transitory, so short lived.      Moving into our experience brings us an enormous sense of freedom. In the meantime we discover that we would rather feel fully present to our lives than be off trying to make everything solid and secure by engaging our fantasies or our addictive patterns. We realize that connecting to our experience by meeting it feels better than resisting it by moving away. Being on the spot, even if it hurts, is preferable to avoiding.  

Sangha notes for 8-16-2021: An excerpt from “My Heart is a Golden  Buddha” by Soen Master Daehaeng:

     If you want to practice spiritual cultivation, don’t go looking for a hermitage someplace far away. Spiritual practice doesn’t depend on some special place, time or technique. Know that your body, your thoughts,  and right here, right now, are the hermitage where you have to practice.     So, regardless of who you meet or what kind of difficulty you encounter, never see that as something other than yourself. Entrust it to all your foundation.      When we live like this, everything in our life functions together, as one mind, and so we can live freely. It’s practicing like this, with what arises in our daily life, that is the essence of true spiritual practice. 

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