Awake-in-Life: Zen & Crafting a Life Fully Lived

8+ months Program for Home Practice: April 4 - December 13, 2025

Access to Zen (A2Z) invites you to participate in a program which emphasizes practices geared especially for those who live and work outside of temple or monastic settings! This program will give you the container in which to frame how you can live fully, manifesting and sharing what’s important to you with your loved ones, your community, and the planet.

How it’s geared for you

Currently, most United States practice programs have generally emphasized meditation to practitioners. This may be due to how Zen has been promoted in Western convert practice settings. It’s been a very useful way. Yet, now, with the maturing of practices in the US, it’s time to reclaim how the laity — called “householders” in the Buddha’s time — was a large and important aspect of Buddhism and Buddhist practices.

Therefore, the revitalizing of this term for the laity is fitting in our current times as we seek to make accessible the teachings and practices which traditionally have been offered first and foremost to ALL practitioners: studies and engagement with the precepts.

Enacting values framed around these Compassionate /Ethical Conduct Aspects:

16 Bodhisattva Precepts are: (Rev. Liên own wording. More traditional ones can be find on the web)

  • 3 Refuges — Exploring how to know & be in: Awareness/Buddha, Teachings/Dharma, & Community/Sangha

  • 3 Over-Arching Aspirations — To not engage in harm. To promote life-affirming practices & actions. To know for myself, & with others, our interconnectedness.

  • 10 Guiding Values —- Living to realize & promote: life; contentment; love/connection; honesty; clear-heart & mind; kind speech; equity/non-competitiveness; sharing & receiving; openness of mind-heart; and non-separation/interconnectedness.

These are essentially a set of values which, in the engagement with them, acts as guides for us to see how we can live more fully.

We are pleased to make the studies of the precepts, or values-enactments, more accessible with the Awake-in-Life Program by offering 2 tracks: 

  • Engaged-Studies or Jukai (Lay Initiation/Ordination Ceremony). Each will have different requirements and sliding donations and costs.

    • ONLINE via Zoom (The Teachings/1st Saturday meetings may be hybrid if there’s 3+ people willing to come to Oakland). Zoom — ID: 272-155-964 or visit this link

The idea for the  two tracks came about because study with the Precepts is a core of practice yet it isn't emphasized in the West very much. Yet, a main intention of the Precepts is to give practitioners a framework to engage in harmony with oneself and with others. In doing so, it becomes much easier to bring one's full attention to the craft of meditation "on the cushion." Engagement with the Precepts is a healing and transformative practice when done in conjunction with meditative practices.

The Awake-in-Life (“Awake”) Program offers us a chance to bring practice into our whole being, our whole life --- on and off the cushion.

Awake Program's  tracks requirements (with dates & Pacific Times):

  • BOTH tracks INFO:

    • Engaging with the Soto Zen 16 Bodhisattva Precepts as a study thru Dharma talks, readings, reflections and discussions.

      • TWO meetings per month: One 2-hour with the full cohort** and one 50-minutes online small group

        o   TEACHINGS MEETING: Mostly 1st  Saturdays, 8:30 -10:30 am: April 5, May 3, June 7, July 13 (Second SUNDAY), Aug. 2, NO Meeting in SEPT. (Rev. in monthlong), Oct. 4, Nov. 1, Dec. 13 (Second Saturday; LAST MEETING)

        o   DISCUSSION GROUP: 4th Tuesdays, 6-6:50pm (or, depending on size, a bit longer meeting or a 2nd small group at 7-7:50pm: April 22, May 20, June 24, July 22, Aug. 26, NO meeting in SEPT. (Rev. in monthlong), Oct. 28, Nov. 25 - Last meeting. (Dec. has NO Disc. Group)

    • Reading/Study materials: Access to Zen Precepts Readings packet provided. 3 precepts books (not included)

      • Norman Fischer: Taking Our Places

      • Reb Anderson: Being Upright

      • Cheri Huber (ed. Sara Jenkins): Good Life: A Zen Precepts Retreat

      • Optional: Robert Aitken’s The Mind of Clover

    • Online access to Monthly practices, Dharma talks, and other resources to support the application of the Precepts in your daily life -- in reflection writings, as an awareness/mindfulness exercises, and/or other forms.

    • Monthly individual Practice Discussion (PD) with Rev. Liên (8 sessions)

    • Access to A2Z’s weekly Meditation Group (Mondays MAY 19-Dec. 22, 2025)

    • Per A2Z Dharma events, we offer this sangha-determined Noble-Giving scale: (average 4 A2Z Med. Grp + 1 PD + 2 Classes/month)

      • Pay-it-Forward (PiF): (more than $75K): $280 /month June-Aug & Oct-Dec. — (Due to DBA: April = $160; May = $210)

      • Standard (S): (between $50 -$75K): $230/month June-Aug & Oct-Dec. — (Due to DBA: April = $130; May = $180)

      • Limited Income (LI): (less than $50K): $180/month June-Aug & Oct-Dec. — (Due to DBA: April = $100; May = $140)

      • Access: No one turned away due to economic hardship. And, as dana is a mutuality practice, please note that everyone is asked to give in ways you’re able. Feel free to discuss with Rev. Liên

      • IN THESE TIME: If you’re able, to provide access, please consider giving to cover monthly for another participant

      • In the spirit of economic transparency, please note you’ll be asked to share with the Awake cohort this information at our first meeting on April 5 and, if it changes, at that time also.

      • Venmo preferred: @SuddenLeap-A2Z (tel. 2585) ; PayPal & Zelle: SuddenLeap.A2Z@gmail.com; Checks accepted

      • Pledge to give by the 7th of each month

        • If you’re ending participation, 30-days in advance notice is needed, please. No refunds after the 7th.

  • ENGAGED-STUDIES Track Specifics: 8 months

    • Commitment to being guided in your practice by Rev. Liên for the duration of the program

    • 8 months commitment to the Awake sangha (community of practitioners)

    • Committing to having a home meditation/zazen practice of 3+ days/week and attending three (3) one-day silent meditation retreats within the 8-month Awake time period

  • JUKAI (Lay Initiation/Vowing Ceremony) Track Specifics: 8+ months

    • Commitment to Rev. Liên as your Dharma teacher AND to continuing a similar practice schedule for 2+ YEARS after completing the Awake Program

    • 8+ months: Beginning with the April - Dec. studies in Awake Program. Then, monthly PDs with Rev. Liên until Jukai (Soto Zen Lay Initiation/Vowing ) Ceremony. ---

      • Date TBD on individual basis with Rev. Liên, dependent on completion of sewing rakusu & when ceremony date is available.)

      • From January 2026 on, monthly A2Z Meditation Group & PDs giving follows standard A2Z structure

    • Committing to having a home meditation/zazen practice of 4+ days/week, attending three (3) one-day silent meditation retreats within the 8-month Awake time period, and a minimum of one 3+days silent retreat/sesshin before Jukai date

    • IF you have not taken Meditation Training “1.0” AND MT 2.0, completion of both courses before Jukai date

    • Sewing a lay rakusu before Jukai date (involves additional costs and time to a Soto Zen sewing program; several in the Bay Area or in US & Canadas)

Apply by Friday, March 28, 2025 at 5pm Pacific Time

Application does not guarantee acceptance. Thank you for your interest!