This monthly meeting is led by Prajna Choudhury, Dharma Teacher in the lineage of Thich Nhat Hanh.
Monday, July 28, 5:30 - 6:45 pm
Meets at Energy Matters
4341 Piedmont Ave Suite 202
Oakland CA 94611
Suggested offering: $10-$20 per class
Limited to 12 participants; register in advance to save your spot.
Reading to be discussed: When No Thing Works: A Zen and Indigenous Perspective on Resilience, Shared Purpose, and Leadership in the Timeplace of Collapse by Roshi Norma Wong.
You can get it at the Energy Matters Bookshop (affiliate link), which supports independent bookstores and Energy Matters, or pick it up at your local library or bookstore.
Note: While we will have a richer discussion if everyone has read the book, please come even if you have not read or completed it: you will still benefit.
Each session will focus on providing spiritual support during difficult times:
- Meditation (part guided, part silent) to help calm and ground.
- Discussion of the reading and how the teachings apply to our lives and times today.
- Opportunity to share and to listen deeply to others in our community.
* Polycrisis - a term popularized by historian Adam Tooze to refer to our collective experience of multiple challenges affecting the world simultaneously.
About Prajna
With ancestral spiritual roots in Vedanta, and an interest in Buddhism from an early age, Prajna Paramita Choudhury began practicing with the late Venerable Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in 2000. She has first-hand experience with the deep healing and inner resources that mindfulness practice offers, and loves sharing the benefits of practice with others. She has been facilitating sanghas (meditation groups) in the Plum Village tradition for two decades.
In 2013 she was part of the last cohort of lay practitioners in the U.S. to be ordained into the Order of Interbeing (Buddhist chaplain) by Thich Nhat Hanh, and in 2025 was ordained as a Dharma Teacher in his lineage at Plum Village in France.
Prajna taught Inner Peace, Outer Peace Introduction to Mindfulness Meditation at Energy Matters Acupuncture & Qi Gong for 7 years, now available as an online class. Listening, a collection of poems from throughout her life, can be found at all online bookstores. She is also the subject of a short documentary film, Paramita, about how mindfulness helped to create family healing and transformation during her coming out.
Suggested offering: $10-$20 per class