Mountain Rain Zen Community Vancouver

Mountain Rain Zen Community invites you to join us in Zen meditation practice. Zen practice emphasizes being fully awake to our own moment-to-moment experience, from our meditation cushion to every aspect of our everyday life. Everyone is welcome, whether completely new to meditation or experienced in Zen or another tradition.

We practice the forms of Soto Zen with a spirit of warmth and inclusion, in the tradition of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, founder of San Francisco Zen Center. We also draw on teachings and practices from other Buddhist traditions.

Our guiding teacher is Zoketsu Norman Fischer of the Everyday Zen Foundation, and our resident teachers are Myoshin Kate McCandless and Shinmon Michael Newton.

Meditation

Sitting meditation (zazen) is the foundation of our practice. The core practice in Soto Zen is shikantaza, or “just sitting.” Grounded in awareness of the breath and the body, we sit with a spacious, non-judgemental awareness of the arising and passing of sensations, perceptions, thoughts and emotions. We extend this practice of awareness from stillness into motion in walking meditation (kinhin). Usually in the zendo we do very slow walking meditation, but at longer retreats we also do faster walking meditation and outdoor walking meditation.

Dharma Study

While Zen emphasizes direct experience, dharma study in community can support our practice and deepen our understanding. Mountain Rain offers dharma study in the form of evening classes, day retreats and weekend retreats. Dharma study may focus on a traditional text or contemporary teaching. It may include reading, talks by teachers, small and large group discussion and writing exercises.

Meeting with Teachers

When you participate in Mountain Rain meditation sessions and retreats you are invited to meet individually with our teachers to discuss your practice. Meeting another person and expressing yourself authentically is a practice in itself. Dokusan is a meeting with a fully qualified Zen teacher and Practice Discussion is a less formal meeting with a practice leader. Doksusan is offered at most weekly meditation sessions and retreats.

Our Community

Mountain Rain Zen Community was founded in 2002, and is registered as a non-profit organization as well as a religious organization in British Columbia. It grew out of the Zen Practice Group of Karuna Mediation Society which first invited Zoketsu Norman Fischer to Vancouver in 1983. We moved to our present location at 2016 Wall St. in April of 2012.

One of the aims of MRZC is to create an active community in our geographical area, a group of people who know one another and support each other in their practice and in their lives.Our community is self-governing; our council (board) handles finances, business and long-term planning, and major decisions are made by the membership as a whole. Our practice committee deals with programming and zendo forms and functioning. All the work related to the community’s activities is done by volunteers.

Zendo rental and other expenses are financed through the fees charged for retreats and from donations by members and others. Our resident teachers are supported through a monthly stipend of $500 and dana, or voluntary donations. Our guiding teacher, practice leaders, and other guest teachers also receive dana.