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Monthly Dharma Gathering
February 3, 2016 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
On the first Wednesday of each month at 7:00p.m. EST, the entire Open Heart Project community gathers together to hear a talk from a special guest teacher, sit meditation together, and share questions, stories, and experiences. Each talk will focus on applying the dharma to real life. This 75-90 minute gathering is free and open to all. Just click this link at that time. This event is free to everyone!
“Waking up to Compassion in the Face of Aggression”
Claude AnShin Thomas was born in rural Pennsylvania in 1947. A survivor of childhood violence, he became a soldier in the Vietnam War, where he served as a helicopter crew chief. Today he is a fully ordained Zen Buddhist Monk in the Japanese Soto Zen Tradition. He has also taken vows of mendicancy.
Claude AnShin leads programs around the US and internationally on mindfulness, healing, and transformation. He is the author of AT HELL’S GATE: A Soldier’s Journey from War to Peace (Shambhala 2004). His writing has also appeared in several anthologies including The Mindfulness Revolution and The Best Buddhist Writing.
He divides his time between the U.S., Europe, and South America in working to bring an end to the repetitive cycles of suffering and violence.
Claude AnShin Thomas served in Vietnam from 1966 -’67, at the age of eighteen, in the 116th Assault Helicopter Company. He was shot down on five occasions and was wounded once, receiving the Purple Heart. He was honorably discharged from the US Army in August of 1968.
Claude AnShin has been politically and socially active, working to end the war in Vietnam, working for student rights and later working to address the plight of many of my fellow veterans who were being socially ostracized – suffering homelessness, drug addiction, unemployability, social isolation, and abnormally high rates of suicide, divorce, and imprisonment. All of these were conditions with which he was intimately aware and personally familiar.
He is very interested in answering any questions you may have. If you have one you would like him to answer during his talk, please email it to us now and we’ll present it to him on February 3.