Sesshin

November Sesshin - Gratitude

With Patrick Bansho Green and Sara Shinei Monial

November 11 - 17, 2024
Great Vow Zen Monastery

  With gratitude for our beloved sangha near and far, the Monastery joyfully offers another sesshin. This sesshin has no set price. All are welcome to attend, and donations from the heart are welcome. During this week of practice, we will eat only the offerings brought to us specifically for this retreat. So food donations, […]

December Sesshin - Rohatsu

With Jan Chozen Bays, Roshi, Hogen Bays, Roshi and Larry Fuho Trussell

December 1 - 8, 2024
Great Vow Zen Monastery or Online

  The light of the Buddha's awakening has not dimmed. This very moment, alive, awake and luminous. Each year people from all over the world gather to celebrate, to sit in stillness and to be nourished by this truth. All over the world people join in the ritual of Rohatsu sesshin. This sesshin is the […]

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? […]

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 […]

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 […]