Events
The Perfection of Joyful Effort
Fridays January 9, 16, 23, 30
This month we study Chapter 3, “The Perfection of Joyful Effort ,” in The World Could Be Otherwise: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path. Does Joyful Effort transform your experience of hardship or difficulty? Do you feel energized, renewed, awakened? Can you share it with others in your life?
Friday Morning Meetings
Online & In-Person
8 -9:30am PDT
Link: Join On Zoom
Meeting ID: 868 2409 2647
Passcode: heartzen
In our Friday morning meetings, we focus on a different Dharma text every few months, and engage in informal discussions that offer opportunities to share the teachings with each other.
Every week begins with sitting and chanting a Buddhist well-being service, followed by Dharma talks or panel conversations, breakout groups and participant discussions.
JANUARY 2026
The World Could Be Otherwise: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path
by Norman Fischer
“Spiritual practice is one of the key sites of Imagination… It leaps from the known to the unknown, soaring beyond facts to visions and intensities… It plays in the deep end, where heart and love hold sway.”
In January we are reading Chapter 5 about Virya Paramita, The Perfection of Joyful Effort. Virya implies irrepressibility of spiritual energy.
This is a book of Norman’s lovely everyday teachings on the Buddha’s Six Perfections (Paramitas) — Generosity, Ethical Conduct, Patience, Joyful Effort, Meditation, and Understanding. We will be reading approximately one chapter a month through March, 2026.
Reading Aloud Group
Schedule Change *February 2026
Monday, February 9
3 – 4:30pm (PT)
Link: Join On Zoom
Meeting ID: 868 2409 2647
Passcode: heartzen
To explore and learn more about creating compassionate community, we offer a spiritual reading group now online (together) on the second Tuesday of each month.
We gather, sit for a few minutes, read to each other for 20-30 minutes from Through Forests of Every Color and then share in a discussion. Bring a cup of tea!
Winter 2026 Read With Us!
Through Forests of Every Color
Awakening with Koans
Joan Sutherland
“In the beginning, the koans are teaching you how to have a relationship with them. They throw you back and forth between form and emptiness, until you’re completely off-balance. Then something relaxes, and you start to sway and flow with it, until eventually there’s no longer one side and another, just one whole world stretching in every direction.”