Clarification of the Way: A night of Daoist poetry, dharma talk, and meditation with Arthur Makaris

FREE

Bethany Center for Spirituality Through The Arts
115 Main Street, Montpelier, VT

More about Arthur Makaris: https://daoisnow.org

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Arthur Makaris has been immersed in the healing, spiritual, and mystical arts for over four decades. Part of Montpelier's PoemCity23 events, join Arthur for his first ever public reading with poetry, dharma talk, and meditation in anticipation of his forthcoming book, Clarification of the Way.

Echoing the many transitions of a long career in Daoist healing practices, Arthur Makaris's current writing is inspired by the poetic form of Daoist literary art and the Chan sutras of the latter half of the first millennium. Arthur is one of the first practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine in the US. He maintains the Acupuncture and Qigong Health Center in Essex Junction, Vermont that he founded in 1986 and teaches traditional Kung Fu, Tai Chi, Qigong, and meditation. His teachings are influenced equally by neo-Daoism of the 12th century and by Chan/Zen Buddhism as it emerged in China during the last half of the first millennium.

Religion invariably acquires flavors of the cultures it enters. Chan (known as Zen in Japan) is no exception. When Chan Buddhism arrived in China in the 5th century, the Mahayana Buddhist concept of form and emptiness found a mirror in the Chinese Daoist concept of corporeal and ethereal. Drawing on both concepts, Chan Buddhism explored the idea of the human as a midpoint between heaven and earth as expressed by the human connection both to the earth and to the transcendence of the open mind. is the Way currently blossoming in a new culture, it is blossoming in a new era of human development. Daoist practice is clouded in metaphor and mystery; the book Clarification of the Way is a reflection on Daoism for our time and culture.

Apr 29, 2024, 1 to 3 PM

Apr 29, 2024, 5 to 6 PM

May 3, 2024, 2 to 4:30 PM