Practicing ubuntu

Satori has no beginning. Practice has no end.
~Kodo Sawaki Roshi
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Image: Nathalie Spehner on Unsplash

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​Did you also have the sense during the past year, that there is a quickening happening on planet Earth?

As 2018 comes to an end, we continue practicing being human and doing our best in the midst of all that’s currently going on. It might not always feel this way - but it's helpful to remember that in every moment life is fresh and brand-new, and that we are alive in it, as it - fresh and brand-new ourselves. 

​There is a well known Zulu word: “Ubuntu”.
The concept behind "Ubuntu" points to
​“a person being a person through other people”, or, as it’s often put:

​“I am because you are.” 

​This idea of community as a corner stone of what it means to be human, reminding us of our inherent oneness - it's what keeps us going and what keeps Furnace Mountain alive: ​
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Furnace Mountain Zen Center is not just a bunch of buildings or a community of practitioners; it’s not just a place where we get together to meditate - it’s a refuge in the spirit of oneness - the one becoming many, many returning to the one, endless unfolding that we co-create together and in which we are co-created.
 
This past year we have continued to offer our gifts and have received yours in this very spirit.
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And we want to thank each and every one of you - for sitting retreats at Furnace Mountain in 2018, for actively helping with our first-year permaculture garden, for supporting the Zen Center in a thousand different ways - through your acts of love, your kind words, your participation in all the work, and of course through your much appreciated donations.

To return to brand-newness in whatever quickening we currently experience
​- this is our birthright and our practice.
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To remember brand-newness in our friend - this is our job as human beings and our practice:

​True practice is the activity of coming together and putting aside self-interest; Sangha, friendship, community and mutual support are the expressions of that.
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~Zen Master Dae Gak
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Image: Nathalie Spehner on Unsplash

I am because you are. 
Who are you? 
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Only don’t know.

Furnace Mountain definitely is because of you. 
That we know in our hearts.
 
May we all have the chance to meet again in 2019, 
and may all beings benefit from our shared practice!

With much gratitude from all of us at Furnace Mountain Zen Center,
and with best wishes for joyous holidays and a peaceful year 2019!

The Furnace Mountain Resident Community

Image: Ales Me on Unsplash