The class is offered through the university's extension and is part of the Yoga and Buddhism Studies program. The class is intimate, with less than 10 people in attendance Saturday. The seven-week course began Jan. 13 and ends Feb. 24, but the extension plans on continuing the class in its next sessions.
Senior Dharma teacher Algernon D'Ammassa, whose Buddhist name is MuMun, led the class Saturday in meditation and helped them understand what it means to be Zen.
Zen is a trendy keyword for being in a calm and peaceful state. But the philosophy is more about self-awareness and helping others.
"The word's been used to market everything from music players to soap, but the word literally means meditation," D'Ammassa said. "The philosophy behind it … is about being present in your own life."
In Buddhism's early days, believers were trying to reach Nirvana. That is, through meditation they wanted to seek enlightenment, and when they reached Nirvana, they essentially were able to "check out," D'Ammassa said.
Zen came around about 1,000 years after Buddhism. D'Ammassa said Buddhists realized "actually the point is to be completely here."Zen meditation trains the mind to be quiet, Yoga and Buddhism Studies program director Molly Schneider said.
"We tend to live so much in our heads…. And in our neurosis we get stuck in patterns and belief systems …. The only way to get beneath these patterns is to still the mind and be able to observe the process of the mind so that you understand that it is the mind, and you start to look at the actual process of those thoughts being created," Schneider said.
"In focusing on that, you're training your mind to not attach to that process and to become still, and in the stillness you experience the actual reality."
In the class, D'Ammassa teaches his students about meditation and about the philosophies behind it.
