By Melanie P. Moore, et al.
Each month, we publish a listing of upcoming contemplative and spiritual opportunities recommended by folks here at The Abbey. Many of us have floundered around in the past looking for community and deep engagement with other pilgrims on the spiritual path. Here we share a curated list of what we are finding, hoping you might find some of it helpful on your journey. We’ve included a Comments section with each listing detailing what we as participants have liked. If you know of something coming up in May or June and would like to have it listed here, please email the information as shown below to [email protected] by April 18 to be included in the post at the beginning of April. Please note that all times are listed in Central Time.
April
The Five Remembrances with Frank Ostaseski (from Upaya Zen Center)
Dates and Times: Sundays, March 23 (recording available), April 27, May 18, June 8, and July 20; 9 a.m. – 11 a.m.
Registration: Open
Cost: $200 for the series ($50 deposit required to register)
Frequency: 5 sessions
Duration: Each session is 2 hours
Format: Online
Recording Available: Yes
Description: The Five Remembrances wake us up to the importance of how we care for ourselves and others as we grow older, experience changes in our health and relationships, grieve for what we love and lose, and, finally, face into our own death. They ask us to honor what and who really matters in our one precious life. They invite us to listen and learn by heart, to share the wonder and wisdom of compassionate practice.
Considered to be among the foundational teachings of Buddhism, Frank will help us go beyond a conceptual understanding to bring these five facts of life into our everyday awareness and actions. Embracing their truth encourages and supports us to live with greater intimacy: to act, speak, touch, and love one another in ways that deeply reflect an understanding of constant change, freeing us to be more alive and present.
This five-session course may be of interest to clinicians and caregivers. The course may be equally appealing to individuals, regardless of age, wanting to explore their personal relationship to death and the wisdom therein for living life fully. This course is a co-sponsored event with Upaya Zen Center and the Metta Institute. All are welcome, and no previous experience is required.
Comments: Frank Ostaseski is one of our favorite presenters and this is an important topic for many in this time. While the description states it may be of interest to clinicians and caregivers, we have found his presentations to be accessible to all.
Spring Practice Period: Living in the Embrace of the Bodhisattvas (from Upaya Zen Center)
Dates and Times: Thursday, April 3, 8:45 p.m. – Saturday, April 26, 1 p.m.
Registration: Open
Cost: Donation
Frequency: “Please follow the schedule in a way that supports your life.”
Duration: One month
Format: Online
Recording Available: Yes
Description: Together during this Practice Period, we will engage in a shared exploration of how the archetypal figures of the bodhisattvas can teach, nourish, inspire, and sustain us as we face the great suffering of our global community at this time and the challenges of our daily lives.
Through Taigen Dan Leighton’s Faces of Compassion: Classic Bodhisattva Archetypes and Their Modern Expression we will study the origins and significance of the major bodhisattvas of Mahayana Buddhism and inquire how we might learn to embody their qualities through our shared daily practice of sitting, ritual, study, conversation, and work practice. We will also explore how the energy of these iconic bodhisattvas moves from ancient times to the present and lives on in the public and private people who have touched our lives.
The month will include full-day Zazenkais, numerous seminars on the text itself, formal study periods, and a weeklong session at the end of the month.Together we will settle into a daily schedule, chop wood, carry water, and embody the practice of “no coming, no going, no arising and no abiding.”
Led by Sensei Monshin Nannette Overley, Sensei Jose Shinzan Palma, and Sensei Ryotan Cynthia Kear.
You are also invited to join us on Upaya’s YouTube channel for daily Zazen, at 8 a.m. and 6:30 p.m., and weekly Dharma Talks every Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.
Comments: Our experience of these Practice Periods has been good. The Upaya Zen Center is an internationally known center of training, education, and lay-person community with a variety of program offerings. Their instructors are experts in their fields yet provide accessible materials and presentations. Our experiences with Upaya programs have always been excellent.
“The Primacy of Love” Lent Retreat with Ilia Delio (From the Center for Christogenesis)
Dates and Times: Saturday, April 5, 7 a.m. – 3 p.m., and Sunday, April 6, 7 a.m. – 9 a.m.
Registration: Open, at this link
Cost: $40 online only (additional pricing options at registration link)
Frequency: One-time event
Duration: 2 days
Format: Online
Recording Available: No
Description: This is a two-day in-person and online retreat series with Ilia Delio for our partner the Immaculate Heart Community.
Join the Immaculate Heart Community as Ilia Delio leads reflections on the cosmological and the theological meaning of love and she “shows love to be the irresistible force of attraction that leads straight into the heart of God.”
Ilia will provide reflection questions for participants to share with each other and will include retreat meditation experiences.
Comments: Ilia Delio is one of our favorite presenters. This is an event jointly presented by Delio’s Center for Christogenesis and a partner organization, the Immaculate Heart Community.
Poetry as Healer: An Exploration of Poetry’s Ability
To Speak the Words We Need to Say (from Eremos)
Dates and Times: Saturday, April 5, 9:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. (plus 4 free, optional, follow-up Zoom sessions)
Registration: Open
Cost: $125 (partial scholarships available)
Frequency: One-time event
Duration: All day (7.5 hours)
Format: In Person at University of Texas at Austin Commons Conference Center, 10100 Burnet Rd., Bldg. 137, Austin, TX
Recording Available: N/A
Description: Join us for a day exploring, experiencing, and celebrating the healing power of poetry. Choose the breakout sessions that call to you and be inspired by our keynote speakers. Throughout the day, there will also be contemplative times to pause, breathe, and reflect upon what you’ve heard, read, or written.
Each session will include experiencing poetry, time for personal reflection, and—in some cases—an invitation to write and share. No prior experience reading or writing poetry is necessary. Sharing your thoughts and writing is always by invitation.
Comments: We always find it interesting to work with and hear poets share their work, especially when their attention is focused on a particular theme, in this case, Healing. Learning how poets approach their craft and how poetry can influence the ways we move through the world and relate to others can be fascinating.
Metanoia Journey’s Sunday In-Person Contemplative Gathering
Dates and Times: Sunday, April 6, 10 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Registration: Not required
Cost: Free
Frequency: Monthly
Duration: 1.5 hours
Format: In person at The Seminary of the Southwest’s Christ Chapel 501 E 32nd St., Austin, TX
Recording Available: N/A
Description: The format of this gathering will include 20 minutes of Centering Prayer, a scripture reading from the sacred texts, a “message” offered by the ministers or guest speakers, community communion, and contemplative music. We invite anyone who wants to participate in performing a role to let us know. Otherwise, just come, rest in God, and receive.
This is a “contemplative service,” with 20 minutes of silent, meditative prayer. For those that attend that have not practiced Centering Prayer before, we have a copy of the brief Guidelines to practice the prayer available at the entry to the Chapel for people to follow along.
At this time, we do not have an area for children to gather separately or have a children’s ministry. Older children are certainly welcome if they can rest in silence during that time.
Comments: This is an opportunity to connect with other contemplative practitioners in person in Austin. While these are primarily Christian contemplative services, all are welcome.
Awareness in Action: Meeting the World with Life-Giving Hands–Actualizing Unfaltering Engaged Practice in Our Time – “Justice” with Valerie Brown (from Upaya Zen Center)
Dates and Times: Sunday, April 6, Noon – 1:30 p.m.
Registration: Open
Cost: Donation requested
Frequency: One-time
Duration: 1.5 hours
Format: Online
Recording Available: Yes
Description: Join us in the continued commitment to social and environmental engagement and justice in this very complex time, to exploring the roots of structural violence in our social systems, and to engage in the world in a courageous way based on contemplative practice and views that actualize non-separateness, interbeing, equity, compassion, justice, integrity, courage, dignity, and unshakable awareness.
Stewarded by Roshi Joan Halifax, Sensei Kozan Palevsky, and Sensei Wendy Dainin Lau. The focus is on recognizing and ending violence in relation to addressing the roots of war/genocide, racism, climate suffering, economics of exploitation and extraction, othering, and our own delusion that we are separate from any being or thing.
Comments: We always like the programming from Upaya and especially enjoy programs led or stewarded by Roshi Joan Halifax. This session on Justice is especially compelling in our current moment.
A Palm Sunday Contemplative Liturgy & Eucharist with Cynthia Bourgeault, Heather Ruce, & Henry Schoenfield
Dates and Times: Sunday, April 13, 3:15 – 4 p.m.
Registration: Open
Cost: Free
Frequency: One-time event
Duration: 1.25 hours
Format: Online
Recording Available: Yes
Description: As Holy Week begins, let us step into a sacred gathering where ancient rituals meet our present moment. Rooted in the timeless flow of eternity while touching the realities of our own, this Eucharistic liturgy invites us into deep stillness, sacred presence, and communal prayer. Through chant, silence, scripture, and sacrament, we attune to the wisdom of Christ’s path and open ourselves to the mystery unfolding in our midst.
Join us for an intimate Palm Sunday gathering with Cynthia Bourgeault, Heather Ruce, and Henry Schoenfield to reflect upon and receive a Wisdom Eucharist as we open our hearts to the mystery of Christ’s passage through death. Let us collectively sound a strong DO for Holy Week. All are welcome.
Note: Please bring bread and wine or grape juice to use at home during the Eucharist portion.
Comments: Led by Episcopal priest and mystic Cynthia Bourgeault, this is a wonderful opportunity to observe Palm Sunday online and to be part of a Wisdom Eucharist, from the Christian Wisdom tradition.
Ripened (S)aging: A Good Friday Invitation for Exploration of Grief, Loss & Mortality in Our Wisdom Years (from Abbey of the Arts)
Dates and Times: Friday, April 18, 10 a.m. – noon
Registration: Open
Cost: Standard Fee $45 (Scholarship Fee $60, Reduced Fee $30)
Frequency: One-time event
Duration: 2 hours
Format: Online
Recording Available: Yes
Description: Good Friday’s potent themes of death and resurrection are compelling portals holding symbolic metaphors that offer an expanded opportunity for wisdom in our eldering years. Join Melissa Layer, a psychospiritual therapist, interfaith spiritual companion and Abbey Wisdom Council member, for a mini-journey through themes of: life review, sacrifice, lamentation, suffering, loss and grief, reconciliation, and forgiveness. Additionally, choosing to face our mortality with courage and curiosity can reveal surprising gifts of grace and gratitude. Calling upon the gifts of poetry (including our own poem-making), journaling invitations, and visio divina reflections (using Melissa’s photographs), we will break open death and resurrection as invitations to personal meaning-making and transformation in our eldering journeys.
We will turn on closed captioning during the live Zoom session (which you are able to turn off in your settings if you find distracting) as well as provide a video recording with closed captioning available and a text transcript of the session.
The program will be recorded for those who pre-register but are unable to attend at the scheduled time or who want to view again. You will be sent a notification when this is ready to view.
You have lifetime access to all online programs.
Comments: The Abbey of the Arts is a vibrant, international online community. This exploration for Good Friday looks especially good because of the variety of ways to engage with the material being presented. We like that participants get lifetime access to recorded programs.
What does it mean to be a mystic? (from the Center for Christogenesis)
Dates and Times: Thursday, April 10, 5 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.
Registration: Open
Cost: $30
Frequency: One-time event
Duration: 1.5 hours
Format: Online
Recording Available: Yes
Description: The term “mysticism” can mean at least two different things. The term can refer to direct experience of God or it can refer to the thesis that reality is ineffable and can be characterized only in paradoxical ways. These two meanings are quite different because there is nothing in the concept of direct experience of God that entails paradox or ineffability.
The purpose of the presentation is to explore both senses of what it means to be a mystic from the perspectives of several process philosophers or neoclassical theists, including Alfred North Whitehead, Henri Bergson, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and especially Charles Hartshorne. This exploration will dispel the traditional opposition between the God of religious experience and “the God of the philosophers.”
Dan Dombrowski will argue against the classical concept of God, which gives rise to such opposition. Judicious versions of divine inclusiveness, nature mysticism, ideal power (if not omnipotence), asceticism, apophaticism, “visions and voices,” and religious aesthetics and ethics will also be discussed, as time permits.
Dombrowski is Professor of Philosophy at Seattle University. He is the author of twenty-two books and over two-hundred articles in scholarly journals in philosophy, theology, classics, and literature. His latest book is Process Mysticism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2023). He is the Editor of the journal Process Studies and is Past-President of the Metaphysical Society of America.
Comments: While we are not as familiar with this particular presenter, we have never been disappointed in any programs from the Center for Christogenesis. This looks like an interesting exploration of mysticism. We also like that their offerings are affordable.
May
Rethinking Religion in an Age of Science: From Institution to Evolution (from the Center for Christogenesis)
Dates and Times: Friday, May 2, at 6 p.m. – Sunday, May 4, at 11 a.m.
Registration: Open
Cost: $140 (Early Registration, reduced cost)
Frequency: Annual Conference (One time in 2025)
Duration: 1 Weekend (Friday evening – Sunday midday)
Format: Online
Recording Available: Yes
Description: According to recent Pew Studies, religion is waning as spiritual secularism is rising. While the data has sounded alarm bells, there may be good reason why religion has become irrelevant while spirituality has become a cultural icon. This conference aims to suture the relationship between religion and spirituality by relocating religion at the heart of cosmic life. Religion has not gone away but it is advancing in new ways. Formal or institutional religion has sidetracked the modern person by placing constraints around religion and segregating its core energies in creeds and doctrines. Teilhard de Chardin realized that religion is essential to the direction of evolution. We will explore how a renewed sense of religion in evolution can reinvigorate planetary life, especially in an age of technology.
Speakers include: Bayo Akomolafe, Diana Butler Bass, Ilia Delio, John F. Haught, Grace Ji-Sun Kim, and Thomas Jay Oord.
Comments: This is an annual online conference. This organization is founded and led by Ilia Delio, one of our favorites, a brilliant scientist and theologian. She is a great teacher and presenter–a format where her work is in many ways more accessible than her books. The conference always has a compelling lineup of presenters. We highly recommend this if you are able to participate.
Ongoing
Contemplative Chant
Dates and Times: Wednesdays at 4 p.m.
Registration: Open
Cost: Free
Frequency: Ongoing
Duration: 30 minutes
Format: Online
Recording Available: No
Description: 30 minutes of contemplative chant from Wisdom Waypoints, with chants led by Susan Latimer and Elizabeth Combs. Chanting is a wonderful practice for bringing both the Moving Center (body, breath, tone) and the Emotional Center (open heart) online. It is a spiritual practice that opens our hearts, nourishes our nervous systems, prepares us for prayer and meditation as a bridge into stillness, and connects us to our innate joy, courage, steadfastness, peace, beauty, truth and goodness. In times of great uncertainty and change, we find chant to be one of the things that most grounds us. These sessions draw chants from Wisdom Schools, various spiritual and religious traditions, sacred texts, old hymns and poetry. Because of the limitations of synching sound on Zoom, all participants are muted except for the one leading. This allows everyone to chant along in their own space. (Great if you are shy about sharing your voice! Fun if you like to try harmonies!)
Comments: Some of us join this contemplative chant weekly and enjoy it very much. We find it a wonderful contemplative practice. Wisdom Waypoints is the wisdom community started by Cynthia Bourgeault, one of our favorite wisdom teachers. Note that this is a small and warm group of regular participants. Therefore, it can be more difficult to participate anonymously.
The Abbey Tuesday Morning Meditation
Dates and Times: Tuesdays at 8 a.m. (Meditation at 8 a.m., optional discussion at 8:30 a.m.)
Registration: Open
Cost: Free
Frequency: Weekly
Duration: Ongoing
Format: Zoom
Recording Available: No
Description: A 20-minute sit, followed by a brief reading and discussion.
Comments: Of course we love this meditation group! It’s The Abbey, our own contemplative community.
The Abbey Spiritual Discussion Group
Dates and Times: Thursdays, 5 p.m.
Registration: Not required
Cost: Free
Frequency: Weekly
Duration: 1 hour
Format: Zoom
Recording Available: No
Description: This group reads books to deepen our spiritual lives and to build community among participants. Newcomers are welcome to join the group anytime. Register on The Abbey website and we will send you a Zoom link.
Comments: The group is starting a new book this month (October), Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Altar in the World. We enjoy this group and the lively discussion both in small-group breakout rooms and with the whole group.
Word of the Week
Dates and Times: Emails sent on Sundays, meets each Tuesday at 8 a.m. and Wednesday at 5 p.m.
Registration: Sign up for weekly emails here.
Cost: Free annual subscription (with recommended donation of $95/yr)
Frequency: Weekly, per above
Duration: One hour
Format: Zoom – link is sent weekly in the email on Sunday
Recording Available: No
Description: A beautiful email is sent on Sundays with the reading of Lectio Divina that will be done. There is a sit and then the Lectio Divina.
Comments: We like this because it’s a chance to revisit the reading for the week—and they always include beautiful artwork (it’s Lectio and Visio Divina!). We like the sense of community. It’s a pretty stable group and there’s a chance to share. We also like the balance of it—they are very mindful of the time, it’s just an hour. There’s a rhythm of it that we like. We read the emails each week and appreciate having the email in advance to sit with it a little before the group reading. There are also opportunities to interact online with the group during the week. We will note that it can be difficult to find the link for the Zoom in the weekly email; it is also spelled out here—the third bullet has link to the zoom with poorly brown highlighted “Click on this link,” but it also provides the zoom code and passcode in the email.
Wisdom Waypoints Daily Centering Prayer/Meditation
Dates and Times: Monday – Friday 9:30 a.m.; Monday/Wednesday/Sunday 6 p.m.; Saturday 10:30 a.m.
Registration: No registration required, join via website
Cost: Free
Frequency: Daily, per above
Duration: 30 minutes
Format: Zoom
Recording Available: No
Description: A collective wisdom pause for “Silence and Stillness.” Wisdom members lead each sit with a brief reading, chant, and meditation/stillness.
Comments: We like this because it is a way to maintain our personal practice alongside others with the degree of anonymity (or not) with which we are each comfortable. Wisdom Waypoints is a part of Cynthia Bourgeault’s network of teaching and practice resources.