LETS GET STARTED
Join Zoom Meeting (must be signed up) Starts July 15th 5pm on Wednesday
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83589581617?pwd=59OZZI92IJu7UaZTbxGm7A9p9CTWHI.1
The Read & Rise Journey
Read & Rise is more than a book club — it is a guided journey for reflection, conversation, and real-life growth. Each series invites us to move beyond simply reading a book and into a deeper experience of insight, connection, and positive action.
To get the most from the experience, please purchase the selected book and download the companion workbook from the members-only page at least one week before our first gathering. The workbook is an essential part of the Read & Rise journey. It is designed to help you slow down, sit with the material, reflect on your own life, and bring more meaning into our group conversation.
As you read each week’s assigned chapters, take time with the workbook prompts. Jot down your thoughts, questions, reactions, and anything that feels personally meaningful. You do not need polished answers. This is not homework in the scary school-flashback sense. The goal is simply to notice what rises in you as you read.
What the Workbook Offers
The Read & Rise workbook includes reflection prompts, journaling pages, and gentle stretch exercises designed to help you connect the book’s themes to your own life. These exercises may invite you to look at old patterns, consider new perspectives, practice compassion, or take one small positive action between gatherings.
The workbook helps turn reading into transformation. It gives you space to pause, listen inward, and bring your own lived experience into the conversation.
What Each Gathering Includes
Welcome & Grounding
We begin by arriving together, taking a breath, and creating a space where everyone feels invited to participate at their own comfort level.
Opening Reflection
Each session starts with a simple question or prompt connected to the reading and workbook. This helps us move from everyday busy mode into thoughtful conversation.
Book Discussion
We talk through the assigned chapters, explore key moments, and share what stood out — whether it inspired us, challenged us, annoyed us, or made us quietly stare into the distance like we just received wisdom from a raccoon in a cardigan.
Workbook Reflections
Members are invited to share insights from the workbook prompts or stretch exercises. Sharing is always optional, but the workbook helps deepen both personal reflection and group discussion.
Community Conversation
Read & Rise is built around meaningful connection. Members are encouraged to share, listen, and learn from one another’s perspectives in a respectful and supportive space.
Rise Practice
Each session closes with a small action, intention, or practice you can carry into the week. The goal is not perfection. The goal is movement — one small step toward living with more awareness, compassion, courage, and connection.
What to Bring
Bring your book, your workbook, something to write with, and an open mind. Tea, coffee, cozy blankets, and emotionally supportive snacks are highly encouraged.
The Heart of the Journey
By the end of each Read & Rise series, we hope you walk away with more than finished pages. We hope you leave with new insight, deeper connection, fresh perspective, and practical ways to bring the wisdom of the story into your everyday life.
Read & Rise Schedule
Growth & Development Series Premiere: 5 week schedule
Breakfast with Buddha
Buy Book by July 6th
Read before each meeting on the following schedule. Approximately 1.5 to 2 hors of
Week 1 — July 15
Read before we meet: Pages 1–67
Focus: Meeting Otto and entering the journey.
We’ll explore first impressions, judgment, skepticism, and the stories we tell ourselves about who we are — and who other people are.
Week 2 — July 22
Read before we meet: Pages 68–134
Focus: The road begins to work on Otto. This week we’ll look at discomfort, resistance, humor, and the way life sometimes interrupts our carefully managed identity.
Week 3 — July 29
Read before we meet: Pages 135–201
Focus: The teacher, the skeptic, and the softening.
We’ll discuss how Otto begins to shift, not through force, but through relationship, experience, and exposure to a different way of being.
Week 4 — August 5
Read before we meet: Pages 202–268
Focus: Judgment, compassion, and control.
This section invites us to ask where we are attached to being right, being certain, or staying safely inside our own familiar narrative.
Week 5 — August 12
Read before we meet: Pages 269–end
Focus: What changed — and what wants to change in us?
For our final gathering, we’ll reflect on Otto’s journey, the wisdom of the story, and what simple action we can carry into our everyday lives.