The UUC Zen Group is offering two opportunities to consider your Life Vows as a New Year practice, in a UU-friendly contemporary Zen Buddhist ceremony of discernment and renewal. Both dates, on Saturday afternoon January 6 or Tuesday morning January 9, will be offered at UUC or via Zoom.

This experience includes a guided meditation to consider your Life Vows for 2024 (and how they differ from New Year's Resolutions). You’ll have time to contemplate and distill a simple written statement of your Life Vows for the New Year. Bring paper and pen/ pencil whether you are participating in person or online. Tea and light refreshments will be available on-site during this time; those at home are encouraged to do likewise. Several body practices – short chants and bowing – will be engaged as part of this two-hour contemplative practice.

At the end of the ritual, a Vows Sealing Ceremony offers the opportunity to seal your vows over incense* and announce them if you wish before our Sangha of support, which will bow in responsive commitment. Those participating on-line are encouraged to provide their own incense offering at a home altar for the sealing ritual. You may wish to include on your altar or writing space any images or mementos of teachers and ancestors who have been meaningful guides and witnesses to your life.

A print-friendly Order of Service, including all chants, is available for download. (Designed to print double-sided in landscape orientation, and fold.) Please have this with you if you are joining online. A copy will be provided if you are attending in-person at UUC.

On Saturday January 6, the Life Vows ritual will be held from 2-4 p.m. in the Knatvold Room and on Zoom as part of a full day of meditation – Zazenkai – with the Empty Moon Zen Sanghas. Registration is not necessary. While full-time attendance is encouraged, it’s also fine to attend for just part of the day. You may participate only in the Life Vows ceremony if you wish.

On Tuesday, January 9, the Life Vows ritual will be held in the Knatvold Room and on Zoom from 10 a.m. to Noon, in place of the UUC Zen group’s regular Tuesday morning Meditation and Study practice.

* A note on use of incense at UUC - Respecting the needs of those who are sensitive to smoke or fragrance,  it is our practice to offer incense at the altar by briefly lighting and then burying the lit end in the ash of the incense bowl. We will also offer an Altar of Compassion just outside the building to provide for lighting and burning incense offerings during and at the end of our time together.