Why We Are Starting This

For years, sitting in the Zen tradition has meant a long drive. The nearest Soto temple in Suzuki Roshi’s lineage in this whole part of the country is in Chapel Hill, hours up the road, and the two of us have made that drive many times, for retreats, for instruction, for the steadiness it gave us. Every time, we wondered why a thing this good was so far away, and why the Upstate, full of people carrying full and difficult lives, had nowhere of its own to sit.

So we decided to begin. We are not teachers and we are not priests. We are two physicians who found something essential on the cushion and want to make it available closer to home. We will start small, twice a month, in borrowed space, with cushions on a floor and a willingness to show up. That is how nearly every Zen center in this country began, including the ones we admire most.

Our hope is simple. We hope that a few people who have wanted this for a long time will find us, and that sitting together will become a quiet anchor in the week for whoever comes. We hope it grows, in its own time, into something larger. And we hold the door open for someone with deeper training to find this community and help carry it further, because a thing like this was never meant to belong to its founders. It belongs to everyone who sits.

If any of this stirs something in you, you are already welcome. Come and find out what an ordinary Sunday morning of sitting still can hold.