Amy Kisei, Sensei

Amy Kisei, Sensei is an authorized Zen teacher, zen priest, spiritual counselor and mindfulness instructor. She has been practicing meditation for almost 20 years. Kisei has 12 years of monastic training and teaching experience from Great Vow Zen Monastery, and holds a BS in Earth Science and Gender Studies. She is trained in Mindful Eating through the University of California San Diego, MECL program. In her spiritual counseling practice Kisei utilizes the tools of meditation/mindfulness, dream-work, process art and ceremony to help people in their healing & awakening process. She is passionate about bringing the practices of meditation/mindfulness into environmental justice & climate grief work and has been instrumental in ZCO’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion work. Learn more about Amy Kisei by visiting her website www.amykisei.org

Upcoming Programs by Amy Kisei, Sensei

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

Also With Laura Jomon Martin

February 3 - 9, 2025

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

Also With Myoyu Haley Voekel

February 13 - 16, 2025

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 […]

May Sesshin - The Light of our Ancestors

Also With Patrick Bansho Green and Ed Gensho Welsh

May 12 - 18, 2025

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 […]

Grasses, Trees, and the Great Earth Sesshin

Also With Sara Shinei Monial and Myoyu Haley Voekel

August 11 - 17, 2025

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 […]