Peter Schneider

I have been going to Wednesday night sittings and Sunday all-day sittings since Sept. or Oct. 05. I have been to a number of zen centers  over the past 20 years and I find the williamsburg center to be a good fit for me. It is unpretentious but serious; there is a minimum of ritual and religious hocus-pocus. I have been to some Zen centers that felt like going to church or temple. This is not like that; it is more like a serious but congenial study group of friends. What do we study? The Self. How do we study it? By forgetting the self.

I find zazen to be a good complement to my work as a psychotherapist. It is a non-verbal, non-discursive way of learning to accept experience; something we are trying to also get at in psychotherapy through discursive, interractive means. I would recommend it to almost anyone.

Peter Schneider
Park Slope, Brooklyn