Monastery

Pari-Nirvana Sesshin: A Meditation Retreat exploring Life, Death & the Unknown

With Amy Kisei, Sensei and Laura Jomon Martin

February 3 - 9, 2025
Great Vow Zen Monastery or Online

Zen meditation is an invitation to the unknown. During this sesshin we take up the Buddha's Parinirvana--the Buddha's death, as the essential inquiry into our own relationship with death, dying and the uncertainties of this life. How often in your daily life do you allow yourself to reflect on your own mortality, your own death? […]

Emergent Darkness - A Creative Process, Parts Work and Zen Retreat

With Amy Kisei, Sensei and Myoyu Haley Voekel

February 13 - 16, 2025
Great Vow Zen Monastery

Darkness is the home from which you come -  Here in winter’s cold, dark hour—what is waiting to emerge? Zen practice and the creative process invite us into the mysterious source from which all things seem to arise. Darkness is pregnant, the empty page full of potential---a plum blossom emerges from within winter’s cold, barren […]

Beginner's Mind Weekend Meditation Retreat

With Myoyu Haley Voekel

February 28 - March 2, 2025
Great Vow Zen Monastery

The teachings and practices of Zen Buddhism empower us to live our lives wholeheartedly with openness, insight and compassion. During this weekend retreat we follow a silent retreat schedule, which allows us to temporarily put aside outside concerns and go deeply into inner work. The silent retreat schedule includes about seven hours of sitting meditation […]

March Sesshin - Deep Listening

With Jogen Salzberg, Sensei, Hogen Bays, Roshi and Anusha Enryu Fernando

March 14 - 23, 2025
Great Vow Zen Monastery or Online
Awareness meeting sound has been a gate into the depths of the heart-mind for as long as human beings hve longed to open. During this sesshin we come together in joyous recognition of the power of deep listening, and sink into the rhythms of our wild, wonderful and mysterious life.

Koan Sesshin

With Jan Chozen Bays, Roshi, Larry Fuho Trussell and Patrick Bansho Green

April 14 - 20, 2025
Great Vow Zen Monastery

Zen koans are words, phrases or questions that can re-orient us from the discriminating mind to the One Mind, from the Relative to the Absolute.   In this sesshin we will work with koans, stilling the mind, and experience the bright clarity that comes forth as each moment   Sesshin is a rigorous and, at times, […]

May Sesshin - The Light of our Ancestors

With Amy Kisei, Sensei, Patrick Bansho Green and Ed Gensho Welsh

May 12 - 18, 2025
Great Vow Zen Monastery or Online

Zen is a direct Mind to Mind transmission--a transmission of light. We study with teachers who help us recognize and embody our awakened wisdom and compassion. During this sesshin, we will connect with our roots and draw strength from the stories of those who have come before us. Our ancestors are real people, walking the […]

The Work: a weekend Inquiry workshop

With Eduardo Zambrano

May 22 - 25, 2025
Great Vow Zen Monastery

During this Workshop, we will use Byron Katie’s method of inquiry called The Work to investigate our core beliefs and fixed ideas which cause suffering in our world. What ideas to you have about your life and the world that actually are not in service to the development of compassion? We hold many views simply from […]

June Sesshin - Loving Kindness

With Jogen Salzberg, Sensei and Laura Jomon Martin

June 9 - 15, 2025
Great Vow Zen Monastery or Online

Because of our past as well as presently existing beliefs and attitudes, our capacity to meet ourselves and life and the people, places and things within it, with an open heart, is probably not fully embodied. Buddha taught that love and friendliness can be developed immeasurably, and that there is only benefit in filling ourselves […]

July Sesshin - Summer Breeze

With Patrick Bansho Green, Danney Soten Lynch and Darah Shonin Ashton

July 21 - 27, 2025
Great Vow Zen Monastery
Summer is bright and alive. The sun hangs high in the sky, illuminating the earth with unflinching clarity. What wisdom does a warm summer day offer? Everything is laid bare before the luminous rays of the sun. In this meditation immersion, we will endeavor to study the self, forget the self and glimpse Buddha Nature, opening in silent communion with this community of human and non- human beings. This is our collective awakening.

Grasses, Trees, and the Great Earth Sesshin

With Amy Kisei, Sensei, Sara Shinei Monial and Myoyu Haley Voekel

August 11 - 17, 2025
Great Vow Zen Monastery

Earth body, sky heart. Rooted and flowing. Luminous and open. We are made of earth and sky, of wind breath and rain song, our lives woven from the teachings of the natural world. This retreat is an opportunity to re-connect and relax into the wild, ancient, wisdom of the Grasses, Trees and Great Earth. We […]

Jizo Sesshin

With Jan Chozen Bays, Roshi and Laura Jomon Martin

September 16 - 21, 2025
Great Vow Zen Monastery - In Person Only

This retreat begins on Tuesday!   This retreat will focus on the qualities of Jizo Bodhisattva, guardian of all that comes from the earth, and Jizo’s qualities – benevolence, optimism, fearlessness, determination, and vow. A unique element of this retreat is the inclusion of time devoted to art projects, creative time, and a slide show […]

October Sesshin - The Ancient Way

With Hogen Bays, Roshi, Jogen Salzberg, Sensei and Danney Soten Lynch

October 9 - 19, 2025
Great Vow Zen Monastery or Online

There is something very special about the magic of autumn and the kicking off of the fall ango practice period that makes this sesshin so powerful. What a great gift it is to be able to sit together in silence. This is our longest sesshin of the year. The extra days enable us drop down […]