Links

The Clear Water Zen Meditation Group is affiliated with The Windhorse Zen Community of Alexander, North Carolina (near Asheville). Please visit www.windhorsezen.org.

Local (Tampa Bay area)

Bodhi Tree Dhamma Center www.bodhitreefla.org is a suburban meditation center in Pinellas County, on Florida's central gulf coast. The grounds feature a meditation hall and bookstore, areas for outdoor walking, and a specimen of the Bodhi tree, Ficus religiosa. BTDC opened in 1985 as a meeting place for the Florida West Coast Buddhist Society, a non-denominational Buddhist study group. It was founded in its present form with the help of internationally recognized meditation teachers Venerable U Silananda (from Burma) and Venerable H. Gunaratana (from Sri Lanka).

The Dhamma Wheel Meditation Society www.dwms.org has been serving the Clearwater, Pinellas-Tampa Bay area of Florida for more than six years. We are a Buddhist society, practicing Theravada Buddhism, that conducts vipassana or insight meditation, breathing or samadhi meditation, and loving kindness or metta meditations. Half day retreats and bi-monthly Dhamma talks help promote loving kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity.

Dharma Drum Mountain Buddhist Association, Tampa Bay Chapter, meets the second Saturday of each month at the Safety Harbor Library Community Room from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM for discussion and meditation. The website for the worldwide organization is www.ddmba.org.   

Flowing Dharma www.flowingdharma.org. Steve Shealy is the founder and guiding teacher of Flowing Dharma, Inc. a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation serving the Tampa Bay area. He has been practicing Vipassana (Insight) Meditation in the Theravadan tradition since 1990, attending silent retreats from three to 30 days in length with a variety of ordained and lay teachers around the country. Since 1997, his primary teacher and mentor has been Matthew Flickstein. While drawing primarily from the Theravadan tradition, he also weaves Mahayana (e.g. Thich Nhat Hanh) and Vajrayana (e.g. Pema Chodron) teachings into his practice and his teachings. He has a particular interest in sharing effective tools for taking the practice back into everyday life (e.g., Metta, walking and eating meditation, concentration exercises) and in researching the integration of psychotherapy and meditation practice from the perspectives of both the professional literature and his personal experiences with clients and students.

Sun Coast Dharma www.suncoastdharma.org Suncoast Dharma offers half-day and day long retreats on a scheduled basis as well as other educational opportunities. Meetings, led by Beverly Wingert, are held every Tuesday night.

The Buddhist Book Discussion Group meets for discussion of Buddhist writings with emphasis on the application of Buddhist principles to daily life. Website: www.mysite.verizon.net/res8zv2w. Meetings begin at 6:30 P.M. every Friday and Monday for meditation (optional) followed at 7:00 P.M. by a book discussion. We also meet every Sunday at 3:00 for meditation (optional) followed at 3:30 P.M. by a book discussion. Call Adrienne or Richard Baksa at 727-934-8040. 1709 Mexico Avenue, Tarpon Springs, FL 34689. Email address: adriennebaksa@verizon.net or richardbaksa@verizon.net.

Other Florida Groups

Florida Dharma Groups Listings: http://www.smiling-buddha.com/fldharma/index.html.

Gateless Gate www.gatelessgate.org Abbot: Senior Dharma Teacher K.C. Walpole. The Gateless Gate is a center dedicated to the practice and instruction of meditation in the Zen Tradition. The Gateless Gate serves as a regional Zen Center for North Central Florida, and is comprised of the Gainesville Zen Circle, the Orlando Zen Circle and the Les-Bi-Gay Orlando Zen Circle. The Dharma rooms are open to all.

The Jacksonville Zen Sangha www.zensangha.net Our sangha is a non-profit religious corporation led by Robert Zenrin Lewis, a Rinzai Zen priest, who was for many years a resident monk at Dai Bosatsu Zendo, a monastery in New York State. ("Priest" and "monk" are the closest terms we have in English). Please visit www.daibosatsu.org to learn more about that monastery. We are not controlled by Dai Bosatsu but we maintain a close relationship with it. Our email address is zlewis@unf.edu.

The Orlando Zen Circle www.orlandozen.org The Orlando Zen Circle is a small but growing community of meditators, practicing in the Zen tradition and style. We are affiliated with the Kwan Um school of Zen and are under the instruction of senior dharma teacher K.C. Walpole, abbot of the Gateless Gate Zen Center. All sittings are open to the public and to people of all faiths and backgrounds. It is not necessary to have any previous meditation experience to attend.

The Brevard Zen Center www.brevardzen.org Kuge-In is a Zen temple, on the Space Coast of central Florida, in the White Plum Soto lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi and Louis Mitsunen Nordstrom Sensei. This is a Buddhist community following the tenets of "Not knowing," "Bearing witness," and "Healing Ourselves and others." We come together to practice in the Zen tradition. We do zazen, chanting services, retreats and study groups. We welcome practitioners and students of various traditions to join us at whatever level of commitment they wish. The center is located at: 1261 N. Range Rd., Cocoa, FL 32926, our phone number is (321) 795-6570 and our email address is chonen_gallagher@hotmail.com. The sangha priest is Jim Chonen Gallagher.

Southern Palm Zen Group www.floridazen.com The Southern Palm Zen Group is comprised of people who have come together to build personal and community wisdom through Zen practice. We do so through zazen (meditation), traditional Zen services, retreats, study groups, social gatherings, and service to others. Our primary practice is taken from the Zen tradition but we draw on the insights of other disciplines. The intention is to use the form, like the banks of a river, to direct or awaken the flow of ancient and contemporary wisdom for ourselves and the world we are a part of.