Zen Precepts

How to live an ethical life : Becoming a Peacemaker

Online Course: June 30—July 28

Tuesdays 4pm PST /5pm CST/6pm EST

Study Zen Precepts with Jitsujo T. Gauthier

Here we are in the midst of a global pandemic, with an opportunity to stop, reflect, breath, and reset our direction. How is all this impacting you?

How to shift into leading an ethical life? How to manifest a world relevant for each of us? How to begin building the right habits, patterns, and neural pathways that move us in this direction?

In this 5-week course Reverend Jitsujo Gauthier will present the Zen Peacemaker Precepts, and share her practice as a Zen Priest, Buddhist Chaplain Educator, and Peacemaker. Zen precepts are a path of ethical conduct for a Bodhisattva. Spiritual Care and precept practice and are relatively synonymous, in that, both invite deep reflection on the caring for self, caring for others, and caring for the world. 

This course is open to those who aspire to live an ethical life regardless of religious/spiritual affiliation. It is also open to those without a religious/spiritual affiliation seeking to deepen their experience of being here.  

Participants will study a Zen Peacemaker precepts as a pathway to living an ethical life and learn ways to embody precepts through meditation, group sharing, readings, and written reflections.

Course Learnings:
—understand/experience being a peacemaker and taking refuge in one’s own being
—apply three perspectives of ethical conduct, i.e., literal, relationships, intrinsic, to daily life.
—practice reflexive skills that expand awareness of actions of body, speech, and thought.
—discover ways to connect more intimately with life through group processes
—create ways to integrate Zen precepts into their spiritual/religious/atheist worldview

Course Schedule:

Week 1: Overview
Three Refuges, Three Pure Precepts, & Three Perspectives

Week 2: The Basics
Precepts 1—5; living by ethics, Three Tenets and Four Commitments of a Zen Peacemaker.

• Not-knowing, Bearing Witness, and Taking Action
• A reverence for all  life;
• A sustainable and ethical economy;
• Equal rights for all;
• Stewardship of the Earth

Week 3: Overcoming Arrogance, Blame and Shame
Precepts 6 and 7; cultivating the mind and bearing witness to each moment.

Week 4: Attachment, Aversion, and Delusion
Precepts 8 and 9; using all the ingredient, and expressing emotions appropriately.

Week 5: Becoming a Peacemaker
Precept 10; honoring all life.