Gaelyn Godwin Roshi, Zen Buddhist Tradition Pay What You Can, suggested value $10

For the month of April, the Rothko Chapel presented a meditation in the Zen Buddhist tradition on the 50th anniversary of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination. Led by Gaelyn Godwin Roshi of Houston Zen Center, this session explored the practice of allowing ourselves to be fully present with the moment and will lift up MLK’s profound impact on equity, peace and justice.

We enter Zen practice with awareness of our sensations, our breath, the sounds, the feeling of being a living body. In this simple yet profound meditation practice, the act of just sitting in the present moment can lead us to a sense of ease and release. Zen can be practiced by people of all faiths. It was originally taught by the Buddha as the method to live in awakening.

At 1:00pm, after the meditation, we had a moment of silence followed by an audio installation of MLK’s final speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” played inside the Chapel and outside on the plaza.

About the presenter: Gaelyn Godwin is the Abbot of Houston Zen Center. She has been a Zen Buddhist priest for 26 years and is authorized in both Japan and the US to teach Zen meditation and Zen Buddhist studies. After training in Tassajara, the largest Western Zen monastery and in Japan, she began to visit the Houston Zen Community in the mid-90’s, moving to Houston in 2003 to help establish the Houston Zen Center. Houston is now her home. The Houston Zen Center, where she teaches, is located at 1605 Heights Boulevard. You can learn more about the Center by visiting houstonzen.org