Welcome to the home-page of the Clock Tower Sangha of Maynard, Massachusetts. We are a community of mindfulness students and practitioners who live in the towns northwest of Boston, Massachusetts. We are a diverse community of Buddhist practitioners inspired by teachings from many different Buddhist traditions, especially those of Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and Zen priest Claude AnShin Thomas, both of whom urge us to enact mindfulness moment to moment in everything we do in daily life.
We gather
to practice sitting, walking, and other forms of mindfulness meditation
together and to support each other in our practice and in our
daily lives. Our sangha is affiliated with the Zaltho Sangha,
which is part of the White Plum Soto Zen community in the United
States, and with the Tiep Hien Order (Order of Interbeing), which
is part of the Unified Buddhist Church. The Tiep Hien Order
was founded byThich Nhat Hanh in the1960s as a way to engage the
practices of mindfulness more directly in the world
The Zaltho Sangha was founded by Claude AnShin Thomas, a Zen Priest
and Brother of the Zen Peacemaker Order, in the 1990s with a similar
purpose.
Some of our members are long-time students of mindfulness; others are relatively new to the practice. Some of us have studied directly with teachers such as Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Sylvia Boorstein, AnShin Thomas, Thich Nhat Hanh and others; and others of us come from diverse practice traditions in the vipassana, zen and Tibetan Buddhist worlds as well as from non-Buddhist traditions. We welcome everyone and we are enriched by the experiences and insights which come from each one of us.
The Clock Tower Sangha meets weekly for an evening of sitting and walking meditation, tea, and a dharma discussion. On the Wednesday nearest the full moon each month, there is a recitation of the Five Mindfulness Trainings (Precepts) of the Buddhist layperson, and on the Wednesday nearest the new moon there is a healing circle. Once each month, we gather for a Day of Mindfulness retreat. Each Day of Mindfulness includes chanting practice, a pot-luck vegetarian lunch, outdoor walking meditation and recitation of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings (Precepts) of the Tiep Hien Order or the 10 Grave Precepts of the White Plum Lineage, and frequently includes prostration practice and listening to a taped dharma talk by one of the teachers from whom we draw inspiration.
The sangha was founded by Andrew JiYu Weiss in 1996. He is the practice coordinator, and he and Wiebke KenSin Andersen share the duties of sangha abbott.
Please note: We now meet on Monday evenings at the South Acton Congregational Church. Please go to our schedule page for more information.
For information about our
abbotts and practice coordinators, including founder Andrew JiYu
Weiss, click here .
For information about classes, retreats and private sessions with Andrew JiYu Weiss, click here.
For links to other Buddhist sites, including information about the Zaltho Sangha, Plum Village and Maple Forest Monestary, the Community of Mindful Living, and the Zen Peacemaker community, click here