True Heart Women's Retreat
May 1 - 4, 2025
You are warmly invited to participate in True Heart Women’s Retreat at Hokyoji Zen practice center in southeastern Minnesota. This retreat is in person only. It will be led by Kyoku Tracey Walen and Toku Cynthia Scott. Activities will include silent and guided meditation, group sharing and discussion, time for individual creative expressions such as writing, artwork, and photography. We will enjoy nourishing vegetarian meals, mindful nature walks, yoga, and ample free time to renew and refresh.
We will take up the question: how shall we live this precious life? What is the most important thing? Together and in solitude we will quietly explore how we can embrace our own life—this very life—with equanimity and ease. Can we live with serenity in the midst of chaos?
The registration fee of $390 covers lodging and food. Hokyoji compensates teachers through the dana (free will offering) system. Registration is limited. There are 9 single rooms assigned by the order of registration; the last 8 to register will share double rooms. To register and for more information, please go to Hokyoji.org and look under "calendar" in the drop-down menu.
Metta (Lovingkindness) Meditation
Weekly Ongoing Practice via Zoom Mondays 8-8:30 a.m. (Central U.S.) with optional 20 minutes of dis
The Metta Sutra is the Buddha's instructions for living a life of peace and good will toward all beings. Dedication to recitation and practice of Metta can be transformative.
Everyone, regardless of experience, is welcome to join our online Metta community for 30 minutes of guided reflection and meditation based on the Metta Sutra. No charge, but dana (free will donation) appreciated. The text of the Sutra is below.
To receive a link for our weekly practice, please email me.
Metta Sutra
This is what should be done by one who is skilled in goodness and knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright, straightforward and gentle in speech.
Humble and not conceited, contented and easily satisfied.
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways, peaceful and calm, wise and skillful, not proud and demanding in nature nor swayed by the emotions of the crowd.
Let them not do the slightest thing that the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in safety, may all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be, whether they are weak or strong, omitting none, the great or the mighty, medium, short or small, the seen and the unseen, those living near and far away, those born and to-be-born, may all beings be at ease.
Let none deceive another or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill will wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life her child, her only child, so with a boundless heart should one cherish all beings: radiating kindness over the entire world, spreading upward to the skies and downward to the depths; outwards and unbounded, free from hatred and ill will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down, free from drowsiness, one should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding. By not holding to fixed views, the pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision, being freed from all sense desires, is not born again into this world.
Yes! Finally!
You'll now find many of my weekly metta talks available for download. They will be updated weekly. Find them under Metta resources.