Guest Talk: Diana Keishin Saltoon-Briggs
June 9 @ 11:15 am - 12:15 pm
Guest Talk at BWZ
Join us for a talk on June 9th with Diana Keishin Saltoon-Briggs where she’ll be discussing Zen, Japanese Tea Ceremony, her book Wife, Just Let Go: Zen, Alzheimer’s, and Love, and more.
Diana’s Bio:
Diana Saltoon has traveled extensively, studied yoga, and in the 1970s developed a program that dealt with modern stress. Her interest in Zen led to a study of Chado, The Way of Tea, as a Zen art and received a certificate of Chamei from the Urasenke School in Kyoto, Japan. Diana became a teacher at the Portland Wakai Tea Association in Oregon before moving with her husband, Robert Briggs, to New York in 2011. They returned to Portland, Oregon, in 2014. A member of Zen communities in Oregon and New York, Diana continues to give presentations, classes and workshops on the Zen Art of Tea. She is the author of Tea and Ceremony: Experiencing Tranquility (2004), The Common Book of Consciousness (1990), and Four Hands: Green Gulch Poems (1987).
Below is a bit more about the upcoming talk in June:
EXPLORING THE JOURNEY OF A CAREGIVER – OPENING TO LOVE, STRENGTH, AND ACCEPTANCE
“To love what is” – is easy to say – however it means placing a great faith in love. Whether we’re caregivers or anyone facing emotions of grief, anger, hurt or sadness, abuse or depression, ultimately it’s love that soothes the aching heart. Even Einstein – admitted about the universal force of love.
In Zen, we don’t talk much about love perhaps because love is a given – like air and light –
We know that besides air, food and shelter, we need relationships – from birth to death – life evolves in relationships with each other and nature – showing us the truth of non–separation and the natural love that arises with this experience
We think of Alzheimer’s has a devastating disease. I’ve experienced it as so as a caregiver for my husband who passed away from Alzheimer’s.
But something happened when I joined Robert on his Alzheimer’s path, feeling as he felt.
When memory is lost
The discovery of an immense heart emerges
Thus Alzheimer’s brought my husband and I an essential gift – placing a great faith in love
Love that transcends conditions and measure
Love beyond the individual self
The journey of a caregiver also brings grief. But I learned that grief is an expression of profound love within that is never exhausted.
Exploring grief and all its related emotions, I’ve learned that when held with compassion, I’m able to release them into the spaciousness of peace and love.
Another gift of Alzheimer’s besides placing a great faith in love – is that Robert brought an instant connection to the Now – and to the true experience of our lives together.
