Open House Social for the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival
Open House
Sun Sept 11, 3:30pm - 5:00pm
Learn more about the Tallahassee Chan Center for an open house and social for the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival! Visit the center, talk with others, and enjoy a moon cake with tea. Families are welcome. This event is in-person only.
3:30pm - 3:45pm: General introduction to Chan Center by Guo Gu
3:45pm - 4:15pm: Musical performance by Haiqiong Deng
4:15pm - 5:00pm: Food and socializing
Tallahassee Chan Center
The Tallahassee Chan Center is a sanctuary for the cultivation of wisdom and compassion. In 2009 Guo Gu (Dr. Jimmy Yu) started a meditation group as a way to repay his gratitude to his teacher, Master Sheng Yen (1931-2009). In 2017, he established this new center to further honor and fulfill his teacher’s original vow of spreading Chan Buddhism in the West. We have weekday morning meditations from Monday - Friday at 7:30am - 8:00am on Zoom. On Mondays and Tuesdays, there are two 30-minute periods of seated meditation, punctuated by a period of either walking meditation or mindful Yoga. On Tuesdays, we practice a special form of “loving-kindness” meditation that Guo Gu developed to cultivate inner peace, kindness, and healing. Select Thursdays are drop-in meditation instructions.
Musical Performance by Haiqiong Deng
Dr. Haiqiong Deng is a master player of the 21-string Chinese guzheng and a veteran practitioner of the 7-string guqin. She is the recording artist selected by Innova Recordings through American Composer Forum, the recipient of 2021-2022 Florida Specific Cultural Project Grant, 2018 Florida State University College of Music Research Fellow, 2017 Florida Cultural Heritage Award, 2017 The Ruby Chao Yeh Award from Association for Chinese Music Research, 2013 Florida Individual Artist Fellowship, 2012 the Master Artist of the Florida Folklife Apprenticeship Award, and the winner of the Outstanding Performance Prize at the 1995 Chinese National Zheng Competition in Shanghai.
Guo Gu, founder of the Tallahassee Chan Center
Guo Gu (Dr. Jimmy Yu) is the founder of the Tallahassee Chan Center, the founder of the socially engaged intra-denominational Buddhist organization, Dharma Relief, and a professor of Buddhism and East Asian religions at Florida State University. He studied under the late Master Sheng Yen for over 30 years, nine of which as his attendant monk and most senior and closest disciple. He is the author of The Essence of Chan (2012), Passing Through the Gateless Barrier (2016), and Silent Illumination (2021).
