24-hour Meditation Sit-a-thon!

Hello!

It's that time of year again....the Clouds in Water Zen Center Sit-A-Thon! I'm inviting you to sit with me either in person, if you're local, or via Zoom. Last year, we raised over $40,000 for the Zen Center and logged hundreds of hours of sitting for peace as a community. We'll be ending the whole 24 hours by ringing 108 bells for a more just world.

I'm inviting YOU - yes, you - to join in the adventure by donating in support of my sitting on that day. Members of my community are creating pledge pages where our family, friends, co-workers, and other community members can support our work to awaken the heart of great wisdom and compassion in the Twin Cities and beyond.

This year, we're going for 24 hours (our guiding teacher, Sosan, is meditating the WHOLE time!), and we have an incredibly generous donor who is offering to match every dollar raised this year and put it toward our mortgage! That means we can raise $50,000 to keep our center open and thriving while at the same time putting an additional $50,000 toward paying off our beautiful building.

My personal goal is to raise $1,500 of our goal of $50,000.

Your donation is tax-deductible and will go towards all things Clouds: programming, BIPOC sitting group, maintaining our beautiful space, community outreach, youth and family programming, and more.

This is our biggest fundraiser of the year, but it’s more than a way to raise funds–we hope that through sitting together, inviting others in our lives to join or support us, and encouraging meditators throughout the city to participate, we’re reminding our community that Clouds is a sanctuary.

We are run primarily on donations and no one is turned away for lack of funds for any of our programming.

From our services and classes throughout the week to our LGBTQ support, BIPOC sitting group, Racial Awareness Groups, Friday Night Zen, 12-Step Mindfulness Group, Youth & Family Program, and more, Clouds is passionate about creating and maintaining a thriving sangha that celebrates diversity. But we can’t do it without the generosity of people who believe that this ancient spiritual technology is vital, especially in these noisy, tumultuous times.

Why I'm Meditating

As Buddhists, when we sit, we actually sit for ALL beings. We believe in the ripple effect of this practice to bring more peace, love, and justice to our hurting planet. I know of no other practice that can meet what we're up against with such grace, resilience, courage, and tenderness.

I hope you join us at Clouds, or online via Zoom.

You can learn more about our work on our website - and feel free to email me with any questions you have.

May you be happy, healthy, safe, and at ease in 2025 and beyond!