Beginner's Zen Class 2020

None Zen Center is a community to advance your Zen practice. At None Zen Center, Zen meditation is not about looking for relaxation, tranquility, or stillness; it is about uncovering the nature of your self, or reaching enlightenment. We started our first meditation center in Taipei, Taiwan in 2013. In 2015, we founded our San Jose Center in California, USA. Two years after that, we had our third meditation center in Tainan, Taiwan by end of 2017, and in February 2020, we started to provide Zen classes in Manchester, UK.

 To spread out the Zen teaching worldwide, we launched our Online Zen School on March 29, 2019, with two courses (Basic Zen Concepts and Monk Boshan’s Advice for Investigating Zen) as a soft opening. One year later on March 27, 2020, we started to provide online Beginner’s Zen Class and Bridging Class, and Advanced Class (May 2020), the structured Zen classes as we provide in our physical centers, aiming to provide a serious Zen meditation environment to advance practitioners’ Zen practice globally. 

 You may find more information about us at www.nonezencenter.org

We suggest that you start from Beginner’s Zen Class. 
In this 3-session course, you will be learning some basic Zen concepts and three meditation methods, including the breath-counting meditation, just-breathing meditation, and doubting meditation (Chn. huatou, Jpn. wato, Krn. hwadu). When you complete one session of the course, we hope you access the next session for one week. ​As we know the importance of building up a regular sitting habit for practitioners, you will be required to practice the meditation skill you learn in that session twice a week before you take the next session. After completing the Beginner's Zen Class, you are welcome to join the Bridging Class. The Bridging Class is a 3-session course. In this 3-session course, you will be learning, practicing, and getting familiar with Doubting Meditation, a time-tested and widely-applied meditation skill that has been proven to lead people to enlightenment, to uncover their self.

 After that, you are welcome to join Advanced Class. Advanced Class is an ongoing course. You will be reading some Zen doctrines and/or Zen stories (Chn. Gongan, Jpn. Koan) to build up the right view about Zen and Zen meditation, and you will be continually practicing Doubting Meditation, as Doubting Meditation is the major meditation method that we apply in the Center. As we know the importance of building up a regular sitting habit for practitioners, we set up compliance for the course. When you complete one session of the course, you won’t be able to access the next session for one week, as you will be required to practice meditation twice before taking the next session.

 Because the platform Teachable is unable to provide a compliance for setting up an order for the courses, and we do want you to complete Beginner’s Zen Class and Bridging Class before you take Advanced Class, we then set the Advanced Class as a private course. You are very welcome to email us at [email protected] to receive a course link for Advanced Class when you complete the Beginner’s Zen Class and Bridging Class. 

 We are thinking about providing our Disciple Training Program (including Instructor Training) online too. Hopefully, we can provide the online Disciple Training Program by 2021. You may find the information about Disciple Training Program at https://thenone.org/discipleship/

Basic Zen Concepts is a great course for you to have the basic right views about Zen and Zen meditation. 

 Monk Boshan’s Advice for Investigating Zen provides the right view and skills for practicing Zen meditation, especially for practicing doubting meditation.

You will need to have a meditation cushion (a pillow) to sit on If you want learn meditation. You will also want to wear loose-fitting clothes to be comfortable for sitting meditation. And it would be better if you can mute your handset and not check emails/texts during the class hours.

Just like all the Zen classes provided by None Zen Center, the Online Zen School is tuition-free. As a non-profit organization, providing tuition-free Zen classes and run entirely by donations, we sincerely ask for your giving to support a tuition-free Zen environment and help continually grow the Zen community. Please consider donating $5, $8, $12 or any generous amount monthly. Any one-time or recurring donations at less or greater than these amounts are truly and deeply appreciated. We thank you for your love, care, and generosity for the Zen community. 

 You may give your donation by clicking on the link below to our Paypal donation page. You do not need a Paypal account to donate. But if you consider giving motherly recurring donations, you will need a Paypal account. Link to donate - https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=SQU2FUA98SP4G&source=url

Sure. You may retake the courses anytime.

You are very welcome to email us at [email protected]