About the Course

Mondays, February 16 – March 23 @ 8:00 – 10:00 am Pacific

This 6-week course invites participants to explore universal human themes—love, loss, friendship, memory, joy, suffering, stillness, nature—through the lenses of Dharma, poetry and meditative awareness.

This course balances universal human experience, Dharma practice, poetic language, and embodied meditative exercises. By the end, participants will have created a body of original poems or prose, written through the senses, reflecting their own Dharma journey.

The course is open to all—no prior experience with poetry or meditation is required.

Each week we will:

  • Ground ourselves in a universal human theme.
  • Explore a Dharma thread that illuminates the theme.
  • Engage in a meditative writing exercise rooted in the six sense gates (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, thinking).
  • Read and discuss 2–3 poems from Buddhist and secular poets.
  • Practice writing our own poetry or prose in dialogue with the week’s theme.

Enroll in the Program

Cost: $125 – $250 (sliding scale)

The registration fee includes a base level of teacher support. Students are invited to support the teacher with a donation now or at the end of the program.

No one will be turned away for lack of funds; please contact us for more information.

Enroll

Instructor

Vanessa Able

Koji Vanessa Able is a Soto Zen priest and practice facilitator. She is a teacher for the online Introduction to Buddhist Chaplaincy Program at the Sati Center. Vanessa completed her Chaplaincy training at Stanford Healthcare, where she continues to serve as a member of the hospital’s Professional Advisory Group. Vanessa has also served in hospice and jail and is an active member of the European Buddhist Union Chaplaincy Network. She is based in southern France from where she publishes the website and podcast, The Dewdrop.