Zen Chants are constant reminders  that we practice together, we are one mind, one heart, one life. Even if we meditate alone, we are united with other awakened ones—not only with those in our immediate vicinity, but with all awakened beings from the past, present and future everywhere in the world.

—Kaz Tanahashi

This Fall we’re starting a choir! Yes, that is right, the Karenji Choir. We’ll be working with a musical setting of a short text from Shantideva’s Way of the Bodhisattva as a way of joining our voices together and cultivating an attitude of goodwill for all beings.

In the Zen tradition, chanting is a powerful gateway to the experience of one-body. When we merge our voices together as one sound, we have the opportunity to touch, intimately and directly, what we share as human beings—just as in zazen, through the practice of breathing, we touch the common ground of our human experience in stillness and silence.

Date and Time Details for Rehearsals: Sundays, 2pm – 3:30pm: 9/3, 9/10, 10/8, 10/15, 10/22, 11/5, 11/19, 11/26, 12/3, 12/10 (bus trip to ZMM to offer the chant) 12/17 (chanting in front to the Temple on State Street for the neighbors and wider sangha).

Location: ZCNYC; Fire Lotus Temple

Contact: Fire Lotus Office, zcnyc@dharma.net, 718-875-8229

More Information: See the letter announcing the formation of the choir here.

We’ll be guided by Hojin Sensei, Abbot of ZCNYC and Justin Ward Weber, a Black trans/non-binary composer, pianist, music director and mystic based out of Brooklyn who also practices at Fire Lotus Temple.

You can show up just as you are, with the voice that you have. It’s all workable!