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ADDRESS:
5322 Highway 86, Chapel Hill, NC 27516 Past a small goldfish pond and hidden among wooded grounds lies the Chapel Hill Zen Center. Members come to practice in a building that was once the home of a Unity Church. The group officially formed in 1980, when several members of the San Francisco Zen Center moved to North Carolina and began to meditate together in private residences. Twenty years later, Taitaku Patricia Phelan had been installed as abbess, and the Chapel Hill Zen Center stood out as one of the most stable and prominent convert centers in North Carolina and the South. Abbess Phelan and her family moved from California to lead the growing Chapel Hill Zen Center in 1991. She received her training at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center and the San Francisco Zen Center under Zentatsu Richard Baker and Sojun Mel Weitsman. The center holds eight services throughout the week, and those include zazen, kinhin, chanting, and prostrations. Chapel Hill Zen Center also holds all-day sittings and sesshins. Those are led by Abbess Phelan as well as guest teachers from the San Francisco Zen Center and other Soto temples. There are many more general and participating members, but approximately thirty to forty fill the small zendo for most Sunday services. The center offers a Buddhist Children's Program every other Sunday for children two to ten years old. Members are primarily European-American and African-American, ranging in age from 20 to 80. Members of the CHZC provide Buddhist services in several state and federal prisons in North Carolina. The Richmond Zen Group at Ekoji in Richmond, VA, is affiliated with the CHZC. LA, CW, KW and JW BM
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