Advanced Class: Zen Poetry
Zen Poetry: How is the inexpressible expressed?
with Ted O'Toole
Offered online and in person.
Wednesdays, July 6 – August 10, 7:15 – 8:45 pm
$110 members | $135 nonmembers | $50 scholarship | $140 scholarship supporter
Find out more about scholarships.
Please register five days in advance.
For the first two sessions of this class we will have presentations about Chinese poetry from Venerable Ding, a Chinese Ch'an nun who has extensive experience with Ch'an poetry and is currently staying at MZMC. She will be assisted by three or four Chinese experts on poetry who will appear on Zoom. In subsequent classes we will look at classic Zen poetry from Japan, selections from Daughters of Emptiness: Poems of Chinese Buddhist Nuns, and some contemporary Zen poetry. We will engage in a bit of poetry writing ourselves by, for example, going outside in a receptive mood, and seeing if any haiku come to mind. Our primary text for the course will be The Poetry of Zen, translated by Sam Hamill and J.P. Seaton. In this class we will wade into one of the world's great bodies of spiritual literature, and find how it can come alive in our modern lives.
