Embodied Practices

Tai Chi

Participants will learn the Sun-style tai chi form adapted and popularized by Dr. Paul Lam. This meditation in motion is a gentle exercise with graceful, flowing movement performed at a slow tempo. The Sun style is a simple, upright form ideal for people of all ages. We welcome you, whether you’re new to Tai Chi, an experienced practitioner, or somewhere in-between. Classes run sequentially.

Contact: Renee Gatsis, Renee.x.gatsis@gmail.com
Meeting Time: Every Saturday, 9:45-10:45 am, in-person at UCE

Yoga

Yoga at UCE is designed to reduce stress, bring relaxation, increase range of motion, and find balance – restorative yoga. If you never have done yoga before, this is your opportunity. Drop in, wear comfortable clothing for stretching, and try it. Yoga is learned by doing.

Contact: Doug Erickson, thinkactlove@gmail.com, or Jessica Tomell-Presto, prestomgk@comcast.net
Meeting Time: Every Wednesday from 9:30-10:30 am via Google Meet.

Pilates

Join us for Adaptive Pilates. Janelle Brittain provides a variety of options for Pilates movements depending on your abilities, aches, pains or injuries. Janelle seeks to make the sessions workable and fun for every level and every age. All you need is a mat or a carpet. And if you are shy, you can keep your camera off.

Contact: Janelle Brittain, janellebri@aol.com 
Meeting Time: Every Saturday, 9:30-10:15 am, via Zoom

Insight Meditation

We are a peer-led meditation group affiliated with the Insight Chicago Meditation Community, a network of Sanghas in the area. Each session begins with a 40 minute meditation, followed by a discussion of our experience of sitting and a brief reading. We welcome you, whether you’re new to meditation, an experienced practitioner, or somewhere in-between.

Contact: Lisa Solomon, lisasolomon99@gmail.com
Meeting Time: Every Thursday, 5:30-7:00 pm, via Zoom

Udumbara Zen Sangha

“To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things.” – Eihei Dogen

The mission of Udumbara Zen Sangha is to express, make accessible, and embody the wisdom compassion of Shakyamuni Buddha. We are a welcoming and vibrant community of Buddhist practitioners who are supportive of all Buddhist schools and particularly devoted to the practice of Zen. We are dedicated to the teaching of original enlightenment and to the liberation of flowering of all beings. Udumbara Zen Sangha acknowledges and values equally the expression of practice in formal settings and in daily life: thus we affirm both lay and monastic practice as expressions of the bodhisattva path.

Guiding Teacher

Sensei Nehan Myoshin Tricia Teater is the Director and Guiding Teacher of Udumbara Zen Sangha. She received Dharma Transmission from Roshi Sojun Diane Martin in 2012.

A lifetime commitment to volunteerism and chaplaincy work, Sensei has served for over 20 years as a team member of Horizon Hospice and Palliative Care of Chicago (now JourneyCare), and has supported incarcerated men and women in maximum security prisons and on death row in Indiana and Illinois. She currently has students from prisons around the country offering Buddhist mediation instruction, lay and chaplaincy ordinations, spiritual support and guidance, dharma teachings and hospice care. She also supports the prison chaplaincy staff in their work with the Buddhist community. Sensei is the former President, Death Row Visiting Team Coordinator, and ongoing Board Member for the Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

She has traveled to Calcutta, India, working with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity at the Shishu Bhavon Children’s Home and she recently traveled to Poland to bear witness at the death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau.

Sensei received her Master’s Degree from Chicago’s Roosevelt University and is certified in conflict resolution and mediation. She is retired from her post as Director of Human Resources for Cook County Clerk and dedicates her time to the Udumbara Sangha.

Udumbara Sangha meets on Tuesdays @ 6:30pm and Saturdays @ 9:00am. Check their website by clicking the button below to see if there will be virtual sessions during UCE’s closure.

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