Welcome to Pop-Up Zendo

Pop Up Zendo is a form that manifests in places where you wouldn’t think a Zen temple would be. It’s a container for things you might not have thought a Zen temple contains. If the entire world is a sacred place, then the point of a pop up zendo is simply to point out that what we think we are looking for is already here. It's a kind of mirage that shows up in the midst of everyday life, in our homes, in a storefront, in conference room 5. It provides a simple foundation where people can sit together, learn meditation, learn the basics of personal practice, and reimagine the way in which we can live in this world. 

The Pop Up Zendo is ethereal. Most of the time it appears to be a collection of duffel bags inside a room in the Santa Cruz Mountains. In reality, it’s mostly something that is carried in the hearts of people trying to bring the very best of themselves forward, practicing something we like to call mindfulness, and making their best effort to act in accord with the world around them.   

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Just sit

Zen is about cultivating mindfulness in all of our activity.  What's mindfulness? According to science, and the sutras agree, it's what spontaneously arises whenever you do three things:

1. Pay Attention

2. Focus that attention on the here and now

3. Stay Curious

This is all you need to do to become a Zen Master.  Thank you for visiting this page.

Still here?  Then you've probably noticed that this exquisitely simple practice exists rather precariously in the midst of our human lives. Fortunately, if we practice cultivating these three little skills, we can alter the mind just like exercise alters the body. Habitual thinking changes as neurons form new connections and organic changes occur in the structure of the brain.

Science knows just enough about how to create mindfulness to call it intriguing. So, to develop a practice that revitalizes the mind, we are going to have to turn to an ancient way, which we call zazen. In zazen, or seated meditation, we use the body to teach the mind what it already knows.  

Creating a zendo just where you are right now

While refuge can always be found in a mountain temple, it can be challenging to determine how these ancient ways fit into the modern world.  And it's not just any world they need to fit, but these ways need to fit the world we live in, each one of our worlds. The neuroscientists tell us mindfulness, just like exercise, can change the structure of your brain and rewire habitual thinking - they just don't quite know how it works.  This "discovery” makes your average buddhist monk smile because they've been at this for millennia - they just never tried to practice this outside the monastery walls. To figure out what Zen is in this so called 'real world' means that we are going to have to take a brand new science and an ancient art and craft a practice from the both of them. Fortunately, there are resources; proven meditation techniques, deep archives of texts, and the experience of a hundred and 117 generations of practitioners. And in building this new home for a new kind of practice, the best place to build it is on-site.

Classes

Classes can be an excellent way to gain an understanding of the study and practice of mindfulness, be it from a Buddhist perspective,  Zen, or MBSR. All of these are gateways. Occasional classes are offered covering a variety of topics. See our events page for more information.

Workshops

It helps to develop new skills. We offer workshops to open up and explore useful topics, learn the practices Buddha was getting at when he talked about skillfulness, and to offer techniques to guide us into the present moment and reveal choices that were previously unimagined. Sign up for our newsletter to get news about new workshops when they are scheduled. 

Retreats

No matter what they're called - sesshins, retreats, or zazenkais - neurobiology tells us that the most effective way to build mindfulness is to sit with a group of people and meditate. We partner with local Zen centers to participate in retreats.

Zen at Work

Team work has always been a core training in zen practice. Since the greatest part of our day is spent at work, and zen considers our everyday activity to be the place where zen is most alive, our work is our greatest opportunity for practice. We welcome the opportunity to sit down with any group of people and help them reimagine what their work, and their team, can be. We have a weekly sitting group at Cruzio in Downtown Santa Cruz on Thursdays at noon.

Zen at Home

As it turns out, the spiritual journey does not take place in a faraway land, it is the things we do in our everyday world. Being a mobile Zen Temple, the Pop Up Zendo is a good place to connect with teacher and with ceremonies to mark the rites of passage in our lives. This is Zen and we have no deities. We're just here to help you recognize that the whole path was sacred all along.