Maria Kannon Zen Center

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April 2026 Newsletter Updated Email from Maria Kannon Zen Center Sorry. Here is an updated copy of the newsletter with fixed links. A Setting For People Of Various Backgrounds  To Practice Zen Greetings!  As spring unfolds, we

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Tuesday and Thursday, 6 am to 7 am
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Brock and Tom shared photographs and images as people welcomed the monks back from their 109-day walk to Washington, D.C. This was taken in Fort Worth, TX.

Weekly Zazen Schedule for 2026
Zoom ID: 2143881450

Awakening to Kinship: An Aspiration and Wish for the New Year 2026

Allow me to share an aspiration as we welcome the New Year 2026.
The way we go about our hectic self-absorbed lives in this deeply troubled and wounded world of ours prevents us from seeing a truth that underlies our very being: that we are all connected in a deep karmic bond of Kinship and Love with one another and with all beings.
The spiritual practice of taking time to be still and to listen in the silence puts us in touch with the innermost core of our being, thereby opening our hearts to our intimate kinship with each and everyone in the universe. This awakening to kinship with all beings enables us to overcome a self-preoccupied, tribalistic mindset that tends to be anxious and fearful and violent, and instead live in the light of the vision of the kinship of us all, becoming an agent of peace and reconciliation.
It is the activation of this Love in our day to day lives, based on our realization of this kinship, that will bring to us the greatest joy, the deepest satisfaction and true fulfilment as human beings.
The heart and mind of one so awakened to this kinship is conveyed by a well-known line from the early Buddhist treatise On Lovingkindness (Mettā Sutta): As a mother would give her life to protect her child, her only child, have this boundless heart in you toward all beings.
Awakening to this all-inclusive and intimate kinship with all, in a truly experiential way, will inevitably affect the personal, social, political, economic, ecological, and all dimensions of our being. And as more and more of us come to this awakening, there would a palpable and effective transformation of our world, from a deeply divided, wounded, violent, and ecologically destructive global society that we currently find ourselves in and for which we are all responsible, toward a mutually accepting, loving, cooperative, ecologically sustainable Earth community, wherein we can celebrate our kinship and our togetherness in the midst of our differences. Imagine what a world that would be! This is my aspiration, which I hope can also be yours.
We can start right here, right now, with a renewed resolve, to take up, and to persist, in the practice of cultivating stillness on a regular basis in our lives, thus enabling our hearts to be open to hearing, and bearing, the pain of our fellow beings in this wounded world of ours. In this way we will find the inspiration and empowerment to become an agent of change and of healing, to become a messenger of kinship and love for one another and for all.

With deep bows, and palms joined,
Ruben

(Photo: Tree of Life)

Ruben’s Talk

Ruben's Talk Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

This is a short video shown on German television (ZDF) in early 1989, about Yamada Kōun Rōshi as interviewed by a German journalist on his views about Zen and Christianity.

Yamada Kôun Roshi, Ruben Habito: Zen perspective on Christianity A television documentary on the perspective of Zen-master Yamada Kôun Roshi and Ruben Habito on the verse from the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are the pure...

The clouds and the moon are the same. Mountains and valleys are different. (From a Zen koan. Gateless Gate Case #35)