Zen Practice, Education, Healing & Service

The Zen Garland Order is a cooperative affiliation of formally empowered, lineage-bearing Zen Teachers.  We hold in common an ethical code and standards for empowerments and teach a shared curriculum for Core Practices and Training Paths. Each Zen Garland Teacher has their own talents, creativity, and specializations.  They carry on their work with students in their own style and offer unique personal approaches to Zen training.

We aspire to provide open, welcoming communities for spiritual development, accessible to people with varying goals and at different stages of development. Our teachers value respect for each practitioner and offer skillful and caring guidance in a safe, structured, and supportive environment. We treat each practitioner as an individual, helping you develop a personal spiritual practice appropriate to your needs, the context of your life and talents, and shaped by your aspirations. We are part of the Engaged Buddhism Movement and encourage envisioning life as service in our own personal and particular forms of engagement.

In this time when our own government is waging war against its own people and amassing unimaginable powers of control for its own purposes, we stand in a moment of profound uncertainty and existential anguish. Legal, institutional, financial, and constitutional protections are being stripped away. Daily, truth is erased and lies replace it. Purposefully, we are set against one another; the common good is abandoned and the social fabric torn apart. In our own American names, terror is unleashed upon us and upon the world.

Apathy, detachment, resignation, paralysis, depression, and despair can unintentionally become compliance.

In such a time, we the people must choose reason over reactivity, resolve over rage, resilience over resignation, bearing witness over blinders, and ethical action over cowering.

The Lotus Sūtra promises that in terrible times, bodhisattvas, those who hear the cries of the world, will rise from the earth to protect the Dharma.

Zen asks: When is it?
The answer thunders back: Now!
Where is it? Here!
Who is it? Me!

Who else, if not we the people, are the bodhisattvas who must rise?

This is a call for ethical action as a direct and living expression of hearing the cries of our very world.

WE BELIEVE

We believe that suffering—personal and collective—calls for intimate presence, pure clarity, and ethical response.

We believe in the inherent resilience of individuals and communities, and in the human capacity to meet adversity with courage, creativity, and care.

We believe that sangha is a lived commitment to stand together, to bear witness, and to dream ourselves into communal connection, especially when forces of division and dehumanization are strong.

WE VOW

We vow to take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha as living guides for meeting this moment.

We vow to practice Not-Knowing, staying intimately close to lived experience and responding from presence and care rather than ideology, fear, or rigid certainty.

We vow devotion to zazen and to cultivating fields of benefaction, understanding that inner practice and engaged action are inseparable.

WE COMMIT

We commit to bearing witness—to our own lives, to one another, and to the realities of this society—without turning away or collapsing into indifference.

We commit to relationships rooted in civic love, dignity, and respect, extending beyond formal roles and institutional boundaries when compassion calls.

We commit to deep listening, ethical speech, and shared discernment, especially where voices are marginalized or ignored.

WE PRACTICE RESISTANCE WITH WISDOM

We practice resistance grounded in nonviolence, interdependence, and care.

We resist greed, exploitation, cruelty, and exclusion, transforming anger and fear into wise, compassionate action.

We nurture a culture of cooperation, solidarity, and shared responsibility, and commit to a just and humane economic order.

WE CARE FOR LIFE

We care for the sacred elements, earth, water, air, and fire, and act to protect and heal the living systems that sustain all beings.

We create fields of benefaction wherever we are, through presence, service, ethical action, and care for life in all its forms.

We honor the dignity of all and refuse to accept policies or practices that render any group disposable.

We stand with those who are threatened, displaced, silenced, or harmed, offering presence, advocacy, and practical support.

WE SUSTAIN THE PATH

We affirm that self-care, education, and ongoing practice are ethical responsibilities, not personal luxuries.

With humility and resolve, we make these commitments in oneness with the Zen Garland Community, for peace, the welfare of all beings, and the flourishing of our shared world.

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