Tuscaloosa Zen Meditation Circle

08/22/2026

All are welcomed for zoom meditation this Sunday and Thursday 8/23/26 and 8/27/26.
Please click link for Zoom information: https://mailchi.mp/a9daa48a4b6c/6zi7qo4i37-10155929

ZEN PASSAGE OF THE WEEK:
I HAVE OFTEN IMAGINED KOANS AS vials of ancient light; in this image, when you get the vial open, the light shines out and everything you see shines too. You can also think about koans as conversations that come out of a dreaming, out of the place that art comes from, that the universe is born from.

--John Tarrant, Zen Teacher, Founder of the Pacific Zen Institute, Author, in Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life. From Chapter 15 – The Master Song Man: An Australian Koan (p. 183). Shambhala.

All are invited to join us. Both Sunday and Thursday groups include a 30-minute meditation followed by a short teaching and facilitated community discussion.    Sundays we are reading together from Becoming Yourself: Teachings on the Zen Way of Life by Shunryu Suzuki and Bring me the Rhinoceros...

08/15/2026

Announcement for Sunday 8/16/26 and Thursday 8/20/26. All are welcomed to join for live/zoom hybrid meditation this Sunday and zoom meditation this Thursday.

We are meeting IN PERSON/HYBRID this Sunday, at our regular location at Lifeline Solutions, just across the river from their old location, 315 Main Avenue, Historic Downtown Northport, 35476 (Livewell Studio - immediately inside front door).
To join via Zoom please click this link: https://mailchi.mp/883ca37291a3/6zi7qo4i37-10155832

ZEN PASSAGE OF THE WEEK:
IF YOU ASK WHETHER you are awake or dreaming, the question itself makes life more interesting and resonant. A lot of things we do might be like finding a song to sing in a dream. If you want to solve a problem, your situation could be like [the] dreamer’s. You don’t have the song, and what’s more, you are asleep. It all seems impossible. Then you notice something odd, and it makes you curious. There is an air of the uncanny and perhaps of danger, but you sense an opening and it makes you happy. This noticing is a kind of involuntary reaching out and when you reach out like this, without thought, your hand lights upon something. It turns out to be your song.

--John Tarrant, Zen Teacher, Founder of the Pacific Zen Institute, Author, in Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life. From Chapter 15 – The Master Song Man: An Australian Koan (p. 171). Shambhala.

08/09/2026

All are welcomed to join for live/zoom hybrid meditation this Sunday 8/9/26 and zoom meditation this Thursday 8/13/26.

We are meeting IN PERSON/HYBRID this Sunday, at our regular location at Lifeline Solutions, just across the river from their old location, 315 Main Avenue, Historic Downtown Northport, 35476 (Livewell Studio - immediately inside front door).
To join via Zoom please click this link: https://mailchi.mp/790446195e52/6zi7qo4i37-10155738

ZEN PASSAGE OF THE WEEK:
In your everyday practice do you develop your idea of yourself, or do you develop Buddha mind? We should always put the Buddha mind first and the self next.

----Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Teacher and Author, in Becoming Yourself: Teachings on the Zen Way of Life. Penguin Publishing Group, pp 87 (Small Mind and Buddha Mind).

08/01/2026

All are welcomed for zoom meditation this Sunday 8/02/26 (we will meet in person/hybrid on next Sunday 8/9 instead of this Sunday).
Please click link for Zoom information: https://mailchi.mp/83fc47b9cb37/6zi7qo4i37-10155622

Zen Passage of the Week:
According to the way of the Zen cook, Beginner’s Mind has three basic ingredients. These three basic ingredients are doubt, faith, and determination. They’re like air, water, and heat. You need all of them for every meal you cook.

--Bernie Glassman, Zen Teacher, Founder of the Zen Peacemaker Order, Aeronautical Engineer, Social Justice Activist, Author, in Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master’s Lessons in Living a Life that Matters, p.52.

All are invited to join us. Both Sunday and Thursday groups include a 30-minute meditation followed by a short teaching and facilitated community discussion.    Sundays we are reading together from Becoming Yourself: Teachings on the Zen Way of Life by Shunryu Suzuki and Bring me the Rhinoceros:...

07/26/2026

All are welcomed for zoom meditation this Sunday 7/26/26 (no Thursday meditation this week).
Please click link for Zoom information: https://mailchi.mp/fcb3b183392d/6zi7qo4i37-10155522

Zen Passage of the Week:
Do the next thing.

--Bernie Glassman, Zen Teacher, Founder of the Zen Peacemaker Order, Aeronautical Engineer, Social Justice Activist, Author, in Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master’s Lessons in Living a Life that Matters, p.52.

All are invited to join us. Both Sunday and Thursday groups include a 30-minute meditation followed by a short teaching and facilitated community discussion.    Sundays we are reading together from Becoming Yourself: Teachings on the Zen Way of Life by Shunryu Suzuki and Bring me the Rhinoceros:...

07/19/2026

All are welcomed for zoom meditation this Sunday 7/19/26 (no Thursday meditation this week).
Please click link for Zoom information: https://mailchi.mp/fb2532d20a5d/6zi7qo4i37-10155411

Zen Passage of the Week:
There are different ways to free ourselves from the trap of knowing. In Zen, we use meditation to help us see that the trap is really made out of our concepts. If we’re quiet and still, we can start seeing our concepts clearly, and start letting go of our attachments. This opens up the trap we’ve created for ourselves.

It’s like the koan, “How do you go further from the top of a hundred-foot pole?” No matter how far we go in life, no matter what we understand or realize, we always stick to what we know at the top of that hundred-foot pole. This koan challenges us to go further, to leap into our doubt. That leap into the unknown allows us to see what it means to let go of the self.

Doubt leads directly to faith. When we let go of all concepts and ideas, we experience ourselves as we really are, not as an isolated individual but as part of an interconnected whole. This leads to faith in the oneness of life. It also gives us the faith to continue to let go of everything, including all our insights and spiritual attainments. Even though the path is endless, we keep going.

--Bernie Glassman, Zen Teacher, Founder of the Zen Peacemaker Order, Aeronautical Engineer, Social Justice Activist, Author, in Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master’s Lessons in Living a Life that Matters, p.52.

All are invited to join us. Both Sunday and Thursday groups include a 30-minute meditation followed by a short teaching and facilitated community discussion.    Sundays we are reading together from Becoming Yourself: Teachings on the Zen Way of Life by Shunryu Suzuki and Bring me the Rhinoceros:...

07/12/2026

All are welcomed for zoom meditation this Sunday 7/12/26 and Thursday 7/16/26.
Please click link for Zoom information: https://mailchi.mp/4a666e3c7bae/6zi7qo4i37-10155319.

Zen Passage of the Week:

THE KOAN
Linji said, “There is nothing I dislike.”

WORKING WITH THE KOAN
What Linji says might seem unbelievable at first. If it’s more intriguing to assume that Linji is talking about something real than the opposite, then what might he be talking about? It’s easy to dislike things, but what does that mean, to dislike? Dislike could mean that you are feeling a strain between how things really are and your story about how things are. Since maps are always fictions, and always smaller than the territory, such a divergence happens every day.

--John Tarrant, Zen Teacher, Founder of the Pacific Zen Institute, Author, in Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life. From Chapter 14 – There’s Nothing I Dislike (p. 163). Shambhala.

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07/04/2026

All are welcomed for IN-PERSON/HYBRID zoom meditation at Lifeline/Livewell Studio this Sunday 7/05/26 and zoom Thursday 7/09/26.

Please click link for in-person address, zoom information, and Zen Passage of the Week:

All are invited to join us. Both Sunday and Thursday groups include a 30-minute meditation followed by a short teaching and facilitated community discussion.    Sundays we are reading together from Becoming Yourself: Teachings on the Zen Way of Life by Shunryu Suzuki and Bring me the Rhinoceros:...

06/27/2026

All are welcomed for IN-PERSON/HYBRID zoom meditation at Lifeline/Livewell Studio this Sunday 6/28/26 and zoom Thursday 7/2/26.
Please click link for in-person address and for zoom information:
https://mailchi.mp/8a6721e1287b/6zi7qo4i37-10155063

Zen Passage of the Week:
HAPPINESS IS A GREAT RISK to your own sense of yourself. You have to forget who you are in order to be happy, or to do anything wholeheartedly. Often what you might think of as yourself is a list of problems and achievements, particularly problems. Without a problem, you wouldn’t need anything. You could lose your citizenship in the society of people who need things. If you have a problem, you need closure, or revenge, or to understand your mother, or to have your partner meet your needs. Yet most of these things are extremely unlikely to occur. And not one of these things would bring happiness if it did occur. On the other hand, if you forget what you know about yourself, you will still pay your mortgage and love your child. When the beliefs fall away, what is left really does look like love.
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When you are not afraid to forget who you are, life in the kitchen, or life in the office, might contain huge and overwhelming happiness. Everything you look at, the door, the walls meeting in the corner of the room, the light shining on the cell phone, might be so alive that it looks back. Other people might not be who you thought they were. Family members might be as fresh and surprising as strangers. And you, whom you have only apparently known all your life, might be fresh and surprising to yourself too. You might not have a perspective for someone to criticize. You might no longer know what you could not do. You might be an owl or an oak tree for a moment, depending on what the world shows you. And finally, when you are not afraid of your happiness, you don’t get in its way.

--John Tarrant, Zen Teacher, Founder of the Pacific Zen Institute, Author, in Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life. From Chapter 13 – The Woman at the Inn (p. 156 & 158). Shambhala.

All are invited to join us. Both Sunday and Thursday groups include a 30-minute meditation followed by a short teaching and facilitated community discussion.    Sundays we are reading together from Becoming Yourself: Teachings on the Zen Way of Life by Shunryu Suzuki and Bring me the Rhinoceros:...

06/21/2026

All are welcomed for zoom meditation this Sunday 6/21/26 and Thursday 6/25/26.

Please click link for zoom information: https://mailchi.mp/70bb8787034b/6zi7qo4i37-10154912

Zen Passage of the Week:
When Buddha had his first intimations of his own enlightenment, a strange question arose in his mind: “Are you afraid of this happiness?” Happiness requires a certain surrender. You have to give up your idea of happiness in order to discover what happiness is. It’s like the child not thinking about riding a bicycle when he’s learning. Okay, that’s not overwhelmingly hard, now, is it? Wait, there’s more. Your unhappiness is threaded through your idea of you. Happiness would overturn some things you know about yourself. Happiness asks, “Are you willing to be a different you?” Or, “Are you willing to be not you?”

Another way to say this is that happiness might be right under your nose at this minute. If it is not here, then it is not anywhere.

--John Tarrant, Zen Teacher, Founder of the Pacific Zen Institute, Author, in Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life. From Chapter 13 – The Woman at the Inn (p. 145). Shambhala.