Samu / Karma-Yoga at Felsentor

In contrast to hotels or course centers, it is common in meditation houses of all religious and spiritual traditions for guests to make a contribution to everyday work. On the one hand as concrete assistance, on the other hand as an exercise in one’s own attentive actions, which gives the same value to every practical activity.

At Felsentor, all course guests help in this sense one hour per day in the house, kitchen and garden. In the office, there is a list where you can register for a selected work upon arrival. The necessary instructions are given by the house community on the first day.

Samu

In Zen Buddhism, Samu (Japanese: 作務) is the term for meditative work in a monastic context, which can lead to perfect awareness as well as the practice of zazen. Many Zen stories report on the realization of seeing one’s true nature (kensho) and awakening (satori) when peeling vegetables in the kitchen or sweeping the yard. Samu is also practiced by lay people during sesshins in order to facilitate the practice of Zen in everyday life later on. During this work, the how is decisive, not the result or the time in which the work was carried out. Samu is performed daily as a supplement to zazen. Devotion is demonstrated by the fact that the practitioner carries out each work assigned to him or her with great attentiveness.

Karma-Yoga

Karma-Yoga (Sanskrit कर्मयोग ) is, in Hinduism one of the Yoga ways, the “Yoga of action”: acting without attachment to one’s actions, a rejection of self-purposes and egocentric interests of doing, working not for the sake of worldly results. Karma yoga is often understood as the yoga of selfless (altruistic) service. In the Bhagavadgita, Krishna Arjuna teaches: Give up attachment, o Arjuna, and accomplish your works, consolidated in yoga. Be equanimous against success and failure. For the contemplative, there is the path of knowledge, for the active there is the path of selfless action. No one becomes perfect by renouncing work. Nobody can renounce doing, everyone inevitably forces the three Gunas (qualities of nature) to do it.