Candlelight Prayer Vigil for Oak Creek Shooting Victims

On Tuesday, August 7, 2012 The Somerset County Cultural Diversity Coalition held a memorial candlelight vigil at the Gurudwara Sikh Temple in Bridgwater. So Shim Sa was only one among the many representatives form the interfaith community who were present to show their support to victims of the Oak Creek shootings.

A spokesperson for the Somerset County Cultural Diversity Coalition stated that the victims “and Central New Jersey must know that the New Jersey community people have them in their thoughts and prayers, and our hearts go out to the families and friends of those who were killed and wounded. Please keep our Sikh community members in your prayers.”

Headwaters of Social Issues

Many people work in different ways towards resolving issues surrounding civil rights, racism, LGBTQ+ issues, violence, pollution, etc.. How does the Zen Center address these issues? It happens that there are many, many lakes which are polluted. Many are poisoned, making them either unsuitable or impossible for life to continue to exist in them. Many inhabitants of the lakes are sick and struggling because the waters are polluted or poisoned. The task of providing a healthy environment for the life of these lakes seems nearly impossible. We cannot seem to remedy the situation quickly enough. These polluted waters further flow into the one great ocean and it, too, becomes polluted. The way we, at the Zen Center, approach the hardships and suffering of the lakes—and ultimately the one great ocean—is by making sure the sources of water are pure. We address pollution by addressing the source. The source waters of the problems facing the LGBTQ+ community, social justice, women’s rights, raci...

Founder's Day 2023 (Abbot's Address)

I have, from time to time, on the rarest of occasions, been accused of being...verbose. I know! I was as shocked then as you are now. So, we are in imminent danger of the lunch getting cold. Yet, I don’t have the words (imagine that!) to express how fortunate we are to be in the mere presence of a Dosa. This is the stuff we each have to stick our head through the mystical curtain of mystery to glimpse. So, we won’t go there now. I thought to myself… if I absolutely had to, choose a single quality of IlCho Dosanim that I would want to highlight. What would that be? And of course, we go through the usual list: wisdom, compassion, knowledge, patience, etc. Yet, as much as all of these are true, today they won’t do. And so, I went on, sifting through and I think I found it. So here it is, the single most impressive quality of Il-Cho Dosanim, for me….expressed in a single word… succinct. Succinct. Never have I met someone who can distill the esoteric and the complexities of our human condit...

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