Teachings
Study
Texts, change, and resources to support your practice.
Practice off the cushion.
The foundation of Zen practice is daily sitting meditation, zazen. But that is not all of Zen practice. Study, regular meetings with a teacher, intensive retreats, participating in the life of the sangha—the community of practice—and deep inquiry into our everyday lives are essential complements to zazen. Appamada offers opportunities to engage Zen practice more deeply in these ways. There are many other possibilities locally and online as well.
Zen living is abundant living, not austere ascetic detachment: it is the very fabric of your everyday life, and the lives of those you touch. We teach Zen practice as relationality: we are in intimate relationship with ourselves, with other beings, with everything we experience, in this very moment. Here you can find links to more information about the teachings offered here at Appamada. As your practice matures and deepens, these opportunities are often helpful in supporting your practice and your life.
Deepening your Practice
Inquiry — How do we bring the Dharma of direct encounter alive? Inquiry is a practice born from that question. Unlike a class, we sit in silence; unlike zazen, we are focused on the encounter of two people, holding the space and witnessing with support and compassion. Tuesdays at 12:30 PM. Everyone is welcome.
Intensives and One-Day Sittings — The purpose of an intensive is to experience of a simplified life. We come together — in the morning and evening, and for a full day on Saturday — and the practice weaves entirely into our lives. It is not a separate time apart from your life, but rather the teachings, the practice, and your ordinary daily activities made whole.
Practice Discussion — Our practice at Appamada is a relational practice — about connections and the flow of energy in our encounters with each other, not solitary contemplative achievement. The fundamental purpose of practice discussion is the liberating possibilities of the encounter itself. You do not need to have a topic or a question. You just need to show up.
Sewing Buddha's Robe — You start wherever you can. You see a great need, so you thread a needle, you tie a knot in your thread. You find one place in the cloth through which to take one stitch, one simple stitch, nothing fancy, just one that's strong and true. Sewing the rakusu is a meditative, embodied preparation for receiving the precepts.
Studying the Precepts — The Buddha warned against making morality synonymous with a system of rules. The precepts he gave his followers were trainings to make compassion and connection natural and habitual — what one teacher called "an energetic cherishing of what we regard as good." Our year-long program is based on shared inquiry and discovery of our own moral and ethical foundations.
Zen Mentors as Spiritual Friends — Former head students who have practiced for years inside the sangha, served in its roles, and chosen to keep showing up. They are not teachers — they are senior students and friends with experience who journey beside you on the path.
ROLES & PARTICIPATION
Depth in Practice — A collaborative reading group engaging Dharma teachings from the Buddha right up to the present day — Dale Wright, Joanna Macy, Peter Hershock, Norman Fischer, and others. For practitioners who want to study together, closely and over time.
Leadership Studies — An evolving collection of books and resources shared with those in leadership roles — drawing from social architecture, organizational theory, and the Zen tradition of wise governance that has shaped Appamada's own evolution.
Library — Appamada maintains a lending library at the zendo. Browse it when you visit — take what calls to you, return it when you're done.
Our Councils — Small groups of experienced practitioners who provide support for the sangha, advise the teachers, and learn together as peers. Active engagement is the lifeblood flowing through all activities, forms, groups, practices, roles, and ceremonies at Appamada. None of these even exist until they are enacted.
Roles at Appamada — Monitor, timekeeper, jisha, chiden, greeter, doshi — each role is a way of offering your attention and care to the community that holds your practice. As one sangha member put it after serving as timekeeper during an intensive: "I felt like the conductor of a symphony. Everyone played their instrument perfectly, each movement harmonized, attuned. We were one sangha."
The Learning Record — Developed by one of our founding teachers, Peg Syverson, from her work in education research, the Learning Record offers a way to document and understand your own learning — based on what you know and can do, rather than your errors or deficits. A holistic and positive way of seeing growth.
First Books
If you're new to Zen, any of these is a good place to start. No particular order — pick the one that calls to you. Links go to Bookshop.org, which supports independent bookstores.
Bring Me the Rhinoceros— John Tarrant
A wild, beautiful introduction to koans — ancient Zen puzzles that work on you long after you close the book. Not academic, not pious. Alive.
Buddhism Plain and Simple— Steve Hagen
The clearest, most accessible overview of what the Buddha actually taught. Short, direct, and grounded in experience rather than doctrine.
Everyday Zen: Love and Work— Charlotte Joko Beck
One of Appamada's root teachers. Joko cuts through every comfortable idea you have about practice and brings you back to the life you're actually living.
Living by Vow— Shohaku Okumura
A gentle, luminous guide to the chants and texts we recite in Zen practice — what they mean, why they matter, and how they come alive in daily life.
Nothing Special: Living Zen— Charlotte Joko Beck
Joko's second book goes deeper — into emotion, relationship, and the ordinariness that is the real ground of practice. The title says everything.
The Feeling Buddha— David Brazier
A fresh reading of the Buddha's life and teaching through the lens of psychology and human feeling. Warm, accessible, and surprisingly moving.
Waking Up to What You Do — Diane Eshin Rizzetto
The precepts as a living practice for everyday life — not rules to follow but ways of paying attention to the choices you're already making.
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind— Shunryu Suzuki
The most widely read introduction to Zen practice in the English language, and a key text in Appamada's lineage. Deceptively simple. Endlessly deep.
MORE Books
Books that have shaped our teaching and practice at Appamada — on Zen, on relationships, and on the life of communities.
Zen practice and teaching
Not Always So — Shunryu Suzuki
Opening the Hand of Thought — Kōshō Uchiyama
Cultivating the Empty Field — Hongzhi (tr. Leighton)
The Art of Just Sitting — John Daido Loori, ed.
Being Upright: Zen Meditation and the Bodhisattva Precepts — Reb Anderson
Zen Lessons: The Art of Leadership — Thomas Cleary, tr.
Crooked Cucumber — David Chadwick
Relationality, encounter, and community
Liberating Intimacy — Peter Hershock
Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism — Dale S. Wright
Buddha's Brain — Rick Hanson
Instructions to the Cook — Bernie Glassman & Rick Fields
The Art of Community — Charles Vogl
Coming Back to Life — Joanna Macy & Molly Young Brown
Right Use of Power — Cedar Barstow
Impact Networks — David Ehrlichman
Koans and classical texts
The Gateless Barrier — Robert Aitken
The Book of Serenity — Thomas Cleary, tr.
The Blue Cliff Record — Thomas Cleary & J.C. Cleary, tr.
The Hidden Lamp — Florence Caplow & Susan Moon, ed.
Compassion and the heart
Lovingkindness — Sharon Salzberg
Training in Compassion — Norman Fischer
Breath by Breath — Larry Rosenberg