The Florida Community of Mindfulness is happy to welcome Roshi Hogen Bays to the Tampa Center for a nonresidential weekend retreat. The theme of Roshi's retreat is seeing through fixed ideas of who we are through looking at the body. The retreat is for open-minded people who are interested in exploring their identification with the body. It begins with the simplest practices of our lives – experiencing our hands and feeling our breath. It can lead to the experience of stepping into the Great Mystery. The retreat will include meditation experiments, dialogue and teaching.

Where does this workshop fit in the path of practice? Here are some aspects of working with the body while walking the spiritual path. While this retreat emphasizes the third aspect, each aspect relies upon all the others:

• First, we must be embodied, living in our body.
  
• Second, we must learn to be good caretakers of our body.
  
• Third, we must be willing to see beyond the body.
  
• Fourth, we must realize that the body is our personal unique means to express the ultimate.
  
• Fifth, what happens when the body dies?

Roshi Hogen Bays is a Zen priest of the White Plum Sangha, a leader of the Zen Community of Oregon, and co-abbot of Great Vow Zen Monastery in Clatskanie, Oregon. A practitioner of Zen Buddhism for 50 years, Hogen began his practice in 1969 under Philip Kapleau at Rochester Zen Center and was a Dharma brother of our teacher Fred. He lived and trained at Zen Center of Los Angeles under the direction of Taizan Maezumi, Roshi from 1980-1984 and took priest’s ordination. After advice and consultation with Harada, Roshi and other Zen teachers, in 2000 he received Dharma Transmission from Chozen Roshi. Hogen holds a Naturopathic Doctor (ND) and Master’s Degree (MS) in Psychology. He worked for the Oregon Department of Corrections for 15 years.Hogen will be sharing teachings with us in a nonresidential retreat which begins 7 to 9 pm on Friday evening, March 1, and continues on Saturday, March 2 from 9 am to 4 pm. 

The suggested donation for the retreat is $60, or $30 for those needing a reduced rate. Retreat registration will close on February 24.