SEVEN DIRECTIONS ZEN
Awakening Together for the Seven Generations into the Future
Spirit Koan Meditation Retreats
Keeping Company with Koan Spirits
We come to meditation for many reasons, but mostly to seek relief from our suffering. Indigenous Communities look to the directions for guidance and to cultivate a relationship with the tapestry of life. We are a global world and the tapestry of life is built by the threads that bind us to each other and to all life. At Seven Directions Zen we use koan practice, Indigenous wisdom, ritual, interfaith and mystic teachings to support you to find peace, happiness and freedom in the very life you are living, while opening up space for the inconceivable to appear.
We want to encourage you to transform your responses to what appears to make you suffer, rather than slap on a band-aid. There isn't anywhere other than right here, right now for you to be. We offer a flexible and adaptable practice that can meet your life just as it is.
Our Retreats last 3 hours, and are based in Zen and indigenous or traditional wisdom. We offer a looseness, insight, and inspiration in one's practice. This might be an expected experience for you, typically, in Zen or meditation practice, but these are essential ingredients to our practice.
Each retreat is organized around a central koan which provides the frame and the richness for the day. We sit together, engage in conversation, ritual or ceremony and discover the relationships we have with the Earth, ourselves and the life we are living.
Silence and companionship deepens your experience of the vast universe that you are but a strand in. Join us!
On-Going Meditation Fridays
Resumes January 20, 2023
4:00 - 5:30
To launch this new year of awakening practices I thought we'd explore “Lojong” together. This practice is designed to wake us up and to cultivate truthfulness and harmony within ourselves and in our relationships.
The practice consists of 59 slogans that offer an approach to life. The slogans are not only for contemplation but in and of themselves are practices and instruments for exploration, discovery and experiences of how we each meet our lives.
We will be encouraged to get in touch with our inner resources of love for ourselves and others. Then, from this foundation of care, we will turn toward the places of difficulty.
The practice encourages us to create space and clarity within so we can address areas of conflict and challenge in our lives. Ultimately we are awakening compassion for all beings, and connecting to those who might share some of the same difficulties that we do.
Finally, we might give birth to a loving and kind response to the challenges of our lives and face these difficulties directly, with a loving and spacious attitude. The practice will allow you to discover some wisdom and insight about how you cause your own suffering through your conditioning.
One on One With Illana
Take Your Practice to a New Level
I assist you in expanding your personal awareness and consciousness. I instruct you in how to use your awareness to cultivate compassion and kindness with yourself and the relationships you have. Together we will explore how your unconscious mind drives your life car without your permission and I will give you the tools to navigate your healed life with intention, understanding, vulnerability and honesty.
You will discover you are standing on holy ground and have been your whole life. Now you get to turn your face toward your life. You will discover how your mind works, how your defenses sabotage what you intend for your life and your relationship, how your body communicates with you and what your soul is most longing for.
We explore how the tapestry of your life, your defenses and the stories you carry influence your assumptions, your choices and your values.
I have had the great privilege to work with elders, healers and wisdom keepers from all over the world. These wonderful teachers and their teachings have deeply informed me and the work I offer to you.
My core philosophy is that healing and wholeness begins first with yourself, then extends to your family, to the larger communities that surround you and finally to the Earth herself. With a new awareness and intention you discover yourself as a secret you have been carrying that is now ready to be revealed. Freedom