OVERVIEW
What does it mean to live a life of practice? What does it look like to respond, moment by moment, with care and clarity rather than habit and compulsion?

Appamada’s Precepts Class is a year-long personal inquiry into the Bodhisattva Precepts. The class is not a rulebook review or a behavioral audit. It’s not about becoming a better person, or even a good one. Instead, it’s a radical invitation to observe, without flinching, how our actions arise, how they land, and what they reveal.

The Buddhist precepts are intimate descriptions of awakened conduct- showing how a person might move through the world with clarity, compassion, and responsibility. Historically, the Precepts emerged as part of the Buddhist monastic code, but in Zen they’ve evolved into something subtler, serving not as rules to obey, but as living questions to carry. Rather than prescribing behavior, they illuminate the terrain of our choices. We don’t “follow” the precepts so much as investigate them. We test, observe, and refine how our actions express (or obscure) our deepest vows. 

The Precepts are portals to intimacy, responsibility, and liberation.

STRUCTURE
Over the course of a year, we’ll engage in monthly hour-and-a-half long sessions, exploring each of the precepts through the lens of our own lives.