Fall Term 2025 – Practice Intensive Group Resource Page

Fall Term 2025 Meeting Dates:

Meetings with Domyo take place on her Zoom (ending in 5898); Peer Group Meetings take place on BWZ Zoom #2 (ending in 1010).

Thursday Practice Intensive Group: 4-6pm Pacific, 5-7pm Mountain, 6-8pm Central, 7-9pm Eastern.
1st and 3rd Thursdays of the month, October – February except where noted

• October 9th (SECOND Thursday – Domyo is at a Zen teacher’s conference on the 1st Thursday of October) – Meeting #1 with Domyo (Domyo’s Zoom -5898)
• October 16th (3rd Thursday) – Peer Group Meeting – BWZ Zoom #2 (-1010)
• November 6th (1st Thursday) – Meeting #2 with Domyo (Domyo’s Zoom -5898)
• November 20th (3rd Thursday) – Peer Group Meeting – BWZ Zoom #2 (-1010)
• December 4th (1st Thursday) – Meeting #3 with Domyo (Domyo’s Zoom -5898) 
• December 18th (3rd Thursday) – Peer Group Meeting – BWZ Zoom #2 (-1010)
• January 8th (SECOND Thursday – First Thursday is New Year’s Day) – Meeting #4 with Domyo (Domyo’s Zoom -5898) 
• January 15th (3rd Thursday) – Peer Group Meeting – BWZ Zoom #2 (-1010)
• February 5th (1st Thursday) – Meeting #5 with Domyo (Domyo’s Zoom -5898) 

Saturday Practice Intensive Group: 11am-1pm Pacific, Noon-2pm Mountain, 1-3pm Central, 2-4pm Eastern, 6-8pm UK, 7-9 Eastern Europe.
Almost all 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month, October – February except where noted

• October 11th (SECOND Saturday – Domyo is at a Zen teacher’s conference on the 1st Saturday of October) – Meeting #1 with Domyo (Domyo’s Zoom -5898)
• October 18th (3rd Saturday) – 3:30–4:30pm – Peer Group Meeting – BWZ Zoom #2 (-1010) – Later than usual so people can attend No Kings/Tyrants
• November 1st (1st Saturday) – Meeting #2 with Domyo (Domyo’s Zoom – 5898)
• November 15th (3rd Saturday) – 12–1pm – Peer Group Meeting – BWZ Zoom #2 (-1010)
• December 6th (1st Saturday) – Meeting #3 with Domyo (Domyo’s Zoom -5898) 
• December 20th (3rd Saturday) – 12–1pm – Peer Group Meeting – NOTE! There is a Term Student Retreat on December 20th – Use Domyo’s Zoom -5898
• January 3rd (1st Saturday) – Meeting #4 with Domyo (Domyo’s Zoom -5898)
• January 17th (3rd Saturday) – 12–1pm – Peer Group Meeting – BWZ Zoom #2 (-1010)
• February 7th (1st Saturday) – Meeting #5 with Domyo (Domyo’s Zoom -5898) 

Study Plan:

The aim of the Fall/Winter 2025 term will be gaining an appreciation for koan work and spiritual inquiry. This does not mean formal curriculum-style koan work as done in the Rinzai school of Zen, but to understand how the Soto Zen tradition is also rich in koan work. Joan Sutherland puts it this way:

Like [poems] and [paintings], koans don’t give us information about something; they present the thing itself. They don’t teach us something we didn’t know about the natural habits of herons or the ability of paint to capture light; they illumine a state of consciousness we can enter. A state of consciousness within the bounds of our ordinary lives, but in an instant dissolving those bounds. – Sutherland, Joan. Through Forests of Every Color: Awakening with Koans (p. 29). Shambhala. Kindle Edition.

We will read and discuss Joan Sutherland’s book Through Forests of Every Color: Awakening with Koans. (Also available as an audiobook; link to Amazon so you can see a preview – not an endorsement.) Domyo will also assign each person a koan to work with for the term. The first couple meetings will involve exercises after check-in. Later meetings will involve participants doing mondo on their koan, with an optional 5-minute presentation at the beginning about what their process has been like.

You don’t have to love classic koans or keep studying them after this term, but this process can lead to a livelier relationship to the Great Mystery. As Joan Sutherland puts it:

The underlying assumption of the koans is that being a human being isn’t a problem to be fixed through spiritual practice, but a precious, disturbing, wondrous, devastating experience that we ought to take full advantage of if we can. Even the much-maligned self doesn’t need to be dismantled, just redirected to its own business, which is the survival of the organism and a sense of continuity in the life that organism is leading. – Sutherland, Joan. Through Forests of Every Color: Awakening with Koans (p. 50). Shambhala. Kindle Edition.

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BEFORE the first meeting:

Read or listen to Domyo’s podcast episodes on koans and spiritual inquiry:

• Natural Koans: Engaging Our Limitations as Dharma Gates
• Spiritual Inquiry:
  • What Spiritual Questions Are and Why They Matter
  • Resistance to Questions and Karma Work Versus Awakening
  • Identifying our Karmic Issues
  • Investigating and Resolving Karmic Issues
  • Koans and Awakening

Read Through Forests of Every Color – Preface and Part One: First Things

Meeting 1 (October):

Check-in; Domyo presents the plan for the term; discuss the reading; exercises.

HOW TO WORK WITH YOUR KOAN

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Read Through Forests of Every Color – Part Two: Four Ways of Looking at a Koan

Meeting 2 (November):

Check-in; discuss the reading and personal experiences so far; exercises.

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Read Through Forests of Every Color – Part Three: Keeping Company with a Koan

Meeting 3 (December):

Check-in; discuss the reading and personal experiences so far; mondo (3-4 people, 15 minutes each).

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Read Through Forests of Every Color – Part Four: Koan Life

Meeting 4 (January):

Check-in; discuss the reading and personal experiences so far; mondo (3-4 people, 15 minutes each).

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Meeting 5 (February):

Check-in; discuss the reading and personal experiences; mondo (3-4 people, 15 minutes each).