Welcome to the Montreal Zen Center

Located on the shore of Rivière des Prairies and surrounded by a beautiful garden, the Montreal Zen Centre offers an oasis of silence in a turbulent urban world, which allows and encourages a serious and vibrant spiritual practice. The Montreal Zen Centre is a lay community with a practice in the tradition brought by its teacher, Albert Low, who was its leader from 1979 to 2016. His teaching is based on the two principal schools of Zen, Rinzai and Soto. A Board of Directors made up of elected members manages the current affairs of the Centre. The day-to-day matters of the Centre, including introductory workshops, evening periods of zazen and retreats (sesshins), take place under the direction and guidance of a core of senior monitors.

" Ask yourself: what is life, my life, really all about? What is it all about? What is it that really matters? When this question is asked sincerely, when one is not easily satisfied with standard answers, clichés, the conditioning of society, the influence of family, friends, TV, or college, a strange truth emerges: there is something that one desperately wants but it is nothing that can be given a name. There is a deep ache, so deep that nothing, it seems, can ever satisfy it. Zen will not give you answers. It adheres to no philosophy or theology. But it will help you come to your own answer, one which will not consist of words, definitions, or theories, but will be a new way of seeing yourself and the world. "

(Albert Low, An Invitation to Practice Zen )