The $60 class fee covers tuition and includes materials for writing and copies of the journal.

Contact Marie Block at originalrootzen@gmail.com or 262-308-4881 to register.

This month’s 12-page edition of the Root & Branch, ORZC’s monthly newsletter, features a four-page report on ORZC’s 16th annual Women’s Retreat. Read to find photos and poems from one of ORZC’s great events during the year.

Also included are teaching essays by Master Teacher Tony Somlai and Abbot Mathew Somlai and our calendar of upcoming events. We’d especially like to note ORZC’s annual community festival, Compassion Fest, on Sunday, Oct. 3 from noon to 4 p.m. We’d love to see you there!

(Photo-above) Participants and volunteers at Camp Bodhi Root 2009.

The Original Root Zen Center’s summer kids’ camp, Camp Bodhi Root, returns this year on Saturday, Aug. 7.

While open to all faith backgrounds, our Zen Buddhist influenced day camp seeks to create an environment where peaceful, interdependent, and joyful activities abound! This year will see the return of many favorite, as well as new events, such as a trivia show designed for children and putting on our own musical. Camp is located on the beautiful grounds of the DeKoven Center. Recommended ages are potty trained to 10. Parents welcome to participate.

Weather permitting camp will be held outside in the grounds and gardens of the DeKoven Center, which sits on 11 acres of land near the shores of Lake Michigan. Inside activities will be held at ORZC.

Camp this year runs from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. For information on this year’s schedule and details on how to register, visit our Camp Bodhi Root page.

Master Teacher Tony Somlai leads this month’s Root & Branch with a teaching essay titled, “Make the dust dance.” The MT writes:

Our job is to grow hope in the middle of cynicism and negativity. Much like the lotus flower our strength shines in the middle of the muck.

Travis DuPriest, a long-time friend of ORZC, writes two pieces for this month’s newsletter, including the essay, “Who’s fishing?” Here’s a taste:

I enjoy the garden with my eyes and feet; Buster, with his nose as he sniffs about between and under the plantings.  By this time of his walk, he’s “done his business,” so I don’t worry about “any volunteer work” he might offer. He’s eager anyway to get around to the front of The East Building and chase more squirrels.

All of this, plus photos from the community and upcoming events.

Click here to download the issue.

The Original Root Zen Center is celebrating Buddha’s Birthday today with a ceremony at 9 a.m. Buddha’s Birthday is one of two major Buddhist holidays during the year. It commemorates the birth the historic Buddha more than 2,500 years ago. And, because we’re all Buddhas, it’s your birthday, too! At ORZC, we wish each other Happy Birthday today, decorate the Dharma Room for a birthday party and eat cake after the ceremony. It’s a real party!

The ceremony also includes “bathing the Earth Buddha,” which was created by Master Teachers Linda and Tony Somlai 10 years ago as a sacred connection between spring, Buddha’s Birthday and the ORZC garden. Ceremony participants plant a seed (this year, sunflowers) and “bath” the seed with water to help it start growing. As the seeds grow, people transplant them in the ORZC garden or their home gardens.

Buddha’s Birthday is a wonderful celebration of a basic truth. We are loving-kindness beings, here at this time and place to help all beings realize their own True Nature. What better place to do this than a birthday party? It’s not too late! Come join us at 9 a.m. at 600 21st St. in Racine. We’re in the DeKoven Center’s East Building. See you there … and Happy Birthday!

The Four Noble Truths starts with the first truth that this is a suffering world. We spend way too much time on that first truth and fail to see the value of the other three truths. The Four Noble Truths are really only one Super Nobel Truth that this world is a practice world. We all come here to learn how to practice and find the true teacher within. We come to this planet in order to learn important truths. Suffering only helps with the initial question, “What is this?” If there is no suffering, there is no question. If there is no question, there is no practice. If there is no practice, there is no helping from loving-kindness.

Abbot Mathew Somlai and Senior Rev. Teacher Holly Johnson are back this month with their parenting column, “Sangha kids - Teaching good crazy.” Here’s a taste:

In wisdom guidance there is no mistake, there are only opportunities for skillful means to compassionate, together action. Take a breath and realize that you just yelled, “Your poopies have a natural lifecycle that you are not allowing to be fulfilled!” and that you must find another way that does not involve what you want. You will be surprised by how much laughter, not guilt, is waiting after that breath, since your child is probably already laughing at you.

And Rev. Teacher interviewed Master Teacher Tony Somlai about the year 2012 and the possibility of the end of the world as we know it.

On some level, most people realize we’re on an unsustainable

course. Lives based on fame, fortune and money aren’t leading to happiness. Our human ingenuity has created unimaginable progress, but done little to nurture loving-kindness. It’s the outcome of a mind=based society, the Master Teacher said.

“Look around,” he said. “We’re arguing over whether we can provide health care for the poor. We can afford two wars, but we can’t afford health care for babies.”

“Thinking has taken us as far as we can go,” the Master Teacher added. “It’s the spiritual that must evolve. 2012 is a metaphor for that kind of awakening. Old traditions, religions, power, politics have all led us to this absolute chaos. The new consciousness prophesized since the beginning of time is upon us.”

All of this, plus Garden Vows from Master Teacher Linda Somlai, exciting news about ORZC’s 16th annual Women’s Retreat and lots more writing, teaching, laughs and photos from the community.

Download your issue here!

All sales benefit ORZC. Hope to see you there!