There is so much talk about meditation that it can make your head spin. It can even lead to misunderstanding. For instance, a common conception about meditation is that it’s meant to give you peace and stress reduction. However, the truth is, an effective and active meditation practice is assists you to become aware and awaken. Any preconceived ideas and expectations get in the way of experiencing what meditation can be.
Meditation is about the experience. Life experience. It’s not about theorizing, wishing, or conceptualizing.
Claude AnShin Thomas traveled from the horrors of the battlefields in Vietnam, struggling with drug addiction, depression, and violence when he returned to the US, to living for 26 years now as a fully ordained Zen Buddhist monk. He is intimately acquainted with suffering and knows how to learn to live in a different relationship with one’s suffering.
Claude AnShin is the guiding teacher at the Magnolia Zen Center in Mary Esther, Florida, and the founder of the Zaltho Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes meditation and nonviolence. Claude AnShin teaches frequently in the United States, Europe, and South America.
Listen in on this show if you’d like to find out:
- How to meditate correctly
- How to become more peaceful
- How to live an awakened life
- and so much more!
Bio:
Claude AnShin Thomas is a Zen Buddhist monk and the author of the books At Hell’s Gate: A Soldier’s Journey from War to Peace and Bringing Meditation to Life.
At the age of 17 he enlisted in the US Army and served in the Vietnam War as a helicopter crew chief. He states that he became responsible for the deaths of many people and the destruction of entire villages. He suffered from isolation, depression, post-traumatic stress, addiction, and unemployment when he returned to the United States. Since that time, he has been working to heal the wounds of war—emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
After living for three years in a Buddhist monastery in France and being fully ordained as a Zen Buddhist monk in Auschwitz in 1994, he walked on pilgrimage from Auschwitz to Vietnam, begging for alms along the way in the ancient Buddhist tradition of takuhatsu. He has walked several other pilgrimages since then in the United States and Europe.
Claude AnShin is the guiding teacher at the Magnolia Zen Center in Mary Esther, Florida, and the founder of the Zaltho Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes meditation and nonviolence. Claude AnShin teaches frequently in the United States, Europe, and South America.
To learn more about Claude AnShin, please visit his website at www.zaltho.org
