Who is the Other? A Zen workshop

With Zen priest, author, and psychotherapist Manu Myōshin Bazzano

Doors: 1.45 for a 2pm start.

What makes a good host? Remembering our essential condition as guests on this earth, which may lead to what Hölderlin called ‘dwelling poetically on earth’, a way of being in the world that is diametrically opposite to fear of otherness. Fear of otherness goes hand in hand with the creation of our identity. We project disowned and unwanted parts of ourselves onto groups we deem unwelcome. This sets the scene for racism, transphobia, homophobia, hatred of the poor and the migrants. For some ethical philosophers the formation of identity is itself a form of violence. I am not you, and my place in the sun presupposes your place in the cold. I demarcate my territory with fences and guard dogs. The more brittle my sense of identity, the more the need to defend it.

The first step in our exploration entails the recognition that otherness is within us. It implies active acceptance of parts of ourselves we don’t like. This means becoming a good host to ourselves.

The second is to become a good host to others, to find solidarity with others, crucial at our time of isolation and division.

The workshop is experiential: the above ideas will be explored through silent meditation, pair and group work, various exercises plus safe shared communication and discussion.

About Manu: Dr Manu Bazzano is an author, psychotherapist, Zen priest and Butoh dancer. He facilitates meditation retreats and groups having studied Eastern contemplative practices since 1980. He is a visiting tutor at Cambridge University and Goldsmiths College London where he teaches existential philosophy and therapy. Among his books: Subversion and Desire: Pathways to Transindividuation; Nietzsche and Psychotherapy; Zen and Therapy: Heretical Perspectives; Spectre of the Stranger; Buddha is Dead, and the forthcoming Difference and Multiplicity: Adventures in Philosophy and Psychotherapy.www.manubazzano.com

SUGGESTED DONATION: £10.00

Host or Publisher Rosslyn Hill Chapel