Information: Austin Zen Center/Zenkeiji Temple offers three 1-month angos (practice periods) a year.. Each includes a more intensive daily schedule, but also offer flexibility of participation in order to assist practitioners who want a serious formal practice that doesn’t weaken their family and professional obligations. To formalize your commitment, fill out and return the practice agreement.

Each practice period also offers the opportunity for practitioners to remain very cloistered in residency at the center. Zazen, study, lectures and discussions, formal meals and work with students and teachers shape the daily schedule of the angos. These people form a core that expands and contracts to accommodate others as they come and go. Click here for more information about the Guest Student Program

Additionally, each practice period will offer training in zendo forms, a practice oriented approach to problem solving, personal conflict, work and Buddhist study. Guest teachers and special retreats and sittings may happen throughout the ango.

Some practice periods there will be a Shuso or Head Student who leads by his or her presence, showing by example that a life can be lived without drama and still be full of interest. A Shuso is an ordained priest in training, and a Head Student is a householder, but the functions during the ango are the same. The Shuso or Head Student generally offers a series of talks on Wednesday evenings, invites any and all sangha members for one-on-one tea and Dharma conversation during the course of the practice period and ends his or her term with a shoso or head student ceremony on the last day of the practice period in which this person answers all Dharma questions.

Summer 2008 Practice Period. This Practice Period will have a theme: The Noble Eightfold Path, which is the primary teaching of the Buddha on living a Buddhist life. The Buddha outlined the eight folds in the very first breaths of his very first lecture, known as the First Turning of the Wheel. I invite you, over the course of these five weeks, to become intimate with each fold of the Eightfold path, and to come to a general understanding of how to realize it in your life. 

The lecture of the first morning of the Practice Period will introduce the Eightfold Path and many of the lectures throughout the Practice Period will consider various aspects of the Eightfold Path. These lectures will also appear on the Audio page of our Web site. A list of readings on the Eightfold Path will be posted in a couple of days, Anyone is invited to join the small group in the library during scheduled study periods to focus on this topic. After this Saturday the 8:30am Saturday discussion group will resume, and offer an opportunity to bring your experiences and questions about integrating the Eightfold Path into your life. Let's all become experts on the Eightfold Path!