Zen Life & Meditation Center of Chicago

163 N. Humphrey
Oak Park, IL 60302
Telephone: (708) 445-1651
Website: zlmc.org
Contact: June Tanoue
E-mail: june@halauikapono.org

Description of Organization

Zen Life & Meditation Center of Chicago (ZLMC) offers a comprehensive core curriculum (http://www.zlmc.org/summary.html) providing principles and practices for living a Zen-inspired life of openness, empathy and clarity. Their vision is to live in an awakened world that transforms suffering into compassion, and delusion into clarity, through the realization of authentic expression. They do this by offering a wide array of teachings such as meditation, retreats, workshops, and Fridays with Roshi. They also provide wellness programs such as Private Zen Counseling, Reiki and Corporate Wellness Programs. At ZLMC, mindfulness meditation is the cornerstone of living a Zen-inspired life. It is taught and practiced in a secular way that makes it easily accessible to everyone.

Grant(s) Awarded

In 2022, a grant in the amount of $20,000 was awarded as follows: The tradition of Buddhism has so much to offer in opening people to their lived experiences and using compassion and skillful means to alleviate suffering where it is found. In many cases, the wisdom practices are not presented in a context where they directly meet the challenges of our modern, American way of life. Zen Life and Meditation Center will assemble a transformative program to address an urgently needed concern: the application of traditional wisdom teachings and practices in the context of the parent/child relationship. Zen and the Art of Parenting: The Mindful Approach to Raising Children is, at its core, a class series that brings parenting into the realm of spiritual practice. In addition, it opens the prospect of community for participants, ensuring the teachings take root through continuing application and discussion groups, refresher skills training, and opportunities for fellowship and peer support long after the class meetings have ended. 

Zen and the Art of Parenting not only ensures a lasting impact in the lives of program participants but it also provides a lasting living legacy for the teachings in our children for generations to come.

In 2021, a COVID-19 Operational Grant of $10,000 was awarded to assist in the process of migrating their program offerings online to continue their mission of helping people live a Zen-inspired life of openness, empathy, and clarity.  The COVID-19 Impact:  Pre-COVID, Zen Life and Meditation Center, Chicago had regular public meditations, class offerings, lecture series, and community events aimed at advancing Buddhist principles and practices. Since the onset of COVID, all in-person offerings have been canceled. Zen Life and Meditation Center has experimented creating space online for group meditation, retreats, as well as one of their key online class offerings promoting mindfulness.  They have experienced limited success with migrating programs and have received positive testimonials about the impact it is having for members.

In 2018, Zen Life & Meditation Center received a $25,000 grant in support of increasing their mindfulness meditation training to the greater Chicago area metropolitan area by building capacity in their administrative and planning team as well as organizing outreach and marketing. Specifically, this grant was utilized to hire an Administrative Director who performs many of the administrative tasks previously done by co-founders and to develop an online meditation course to expand Zen Life Chicago’s reach to national and international audiences and as a potential source of membership and referrals for meditation training opportunities.

In 2010, a Lenz Foundation grant of $500 was made to enable two ZLMC participants to register for the 2011 Soul of Money workshop & conferences.