Vow Sesshin
With Hogen Bays, Roshi, Sara Shinei Monial and Patrick Bansho Green
January 7 - 12, 2025
From emptiness springs forth our deepest potential. When we are able to drop our ideas about who and what we are, we can recognize the infinite realm of possibility that has always been our playground.
Reality before interpretation, before we start applying labels and identities, is vast and unbounded. From this space, we access the wisdom and compassion that is the source material of our life.
With wisdom and compassion as our foundation, we recognize that we are the totality. Nothing separate and always in relationship. We come to see our personality and our personal particularities as part of the giddy cosmic unfolding of this mysterious universe. These particularities can be celebrated and manifest as means for the greater good.
With the guidance from our sangha and teachers, we embark on a journey of intention and presence. How do we live our vows in the moment to moment unfolding of a life? How do we carry vow, how does it carry us, through our darkest and brightest moments?
The Bodhisattva Vow lives through us, it is the current of energy that has sustained our human hearts, generation to generation. We are the culmination of this timeless vow.
About the Leaders
Hogen Bays, Roshi
Hogen Bays, Roshi began practicing in 1968 with Philip Kapleau, Roshi and was part of the residential staff at Zen Center of Rochester in Rochester, New York until 1975. He lived and trained at Zen Center of Los Angeles under the direction of Taizan Maezumi, Roshi from 1980-1984. In 1990 he took priest’s ordination […]
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Sara Shinei Monial
Sara Shinei Monial is a Zen priest who completed her novice training at Great Vow in 2020. She has been practicing meditation intensively since 2007, and has practiced closely with various teachers including Jan Chozen Bays, Roshi, Hogen Bays, Roshi, and Satya Vayu. Shinei has a BA in Education, but left the field years ago […]
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Patrick Bansho Green
Patrick Bansho Green has practiced with the Zen Community of Oregon since 2004 and received Lay Transmission from Chozen Bays and Hogen Bays in 2019, priest ordination in 2021, and completed Preceptor Authorization and Dharma Transmission in 2023. As board president, he led the effort to found Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple, a lay practice […]
Learn more about Patrick Bansho GreenCategories : Featured Events, Monastery