ZCO Board meeting March 2025
March 30, 2025
Heart of Wisdom (in person) and Online (Zoom)
Board meetings are open and members of the community are invited to attend. Board meetings are a place to find out what’s happening and how ZCO functions. Typical topics include finances, reports on goings on at the monastery and temple, committee reports, and the community's strategic plans. Meetings are held via Zoom.
Home Hermitage – A Day Long Retreat Online
With Jogen Salzberg, Sensei
March 30, 2025
Online
We will spend a day meditating in the intimate aloneness that embraces all beings. Doing sustained zazen in our own dwelling place and its wild domesticity invites the desired integration of the everyday and the sacred. […]
Spring Practice Period: Awakening with the Earth
April 1 - June 1, 2025
Great Vow Zen Monastery
Spring at Great Vow Zen Monastery is beautiful. The fruit tree blossoms open towards the heavens, the forest is abuzz with new insects, birds and tree frogs are waking up from their winter slumber, and daffodils, poppies, irises and tulips paint the world. With the natural world springing to life with such exubrance and force, residency at the monastery inclines towards the out of doors. We dedicate more of our daily practice to the care and maintenance of our garden and grounds. This includes maintaining our trails and caring for native trees in our forest to planting veggies in…
The Resilient Heart
With Hogen Bays, Roshi
April 3 - 6, 2025
Great Vow Zen Monastery
Our practice is a continual invitation to expand our view. As our view expands, we no longer live tethered to our preferences, judgements and beliefs about how we think the world should be. We come to see that even the most tumultuous and challenging circumstances can become opportunities for deep insight and possibility. Our Zazen practice gives us a foundation upon which insight can land and be cultivated. It gives us a base upon which we can move with the winds of change. Here is our space to ground, to root, and then to look around with fresh eyes. What…
Doing the Work of Byron Katie
With Linda Chōon Frischmeyer
April 5, 2025
Heart Of Wisdom Zen Temple
Doing the Work of Byron Katie "Of all the diseases, all the ailments that afflict humanity, there is one common denominator: the conditioned mind. Our unconditioned minds are deeply interconnected." - Chakung Jigme Wangdrak "The Work is about internal cause and effect. It is not about the external world." - Byron Katie This one-day in-person workshop at Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple provides newcomers and those familiar with this form of meditation opportunities for: Learning about The Work of Byron Katie Identifying our beliefs Doing The Work (meditation) Learning to facilitate another; listening and being present Q&A Lunch…
Investigating Zen Practice: a one-day workshop
With Kosho Ault and Ed Gensho Welsh
April 12, 2025
Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple
Experience an Introduction to Zen Practice through the Ten Directions. This one-day in-person workshop at Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple is for beginners or those who want to dive deeper into Zen practice. Learn how to practice using ancient methods that are applicable in today’s world: Meditation and sitting with stability Mindfulness practice off the cushion Chanting Mindful eating Work practice Stillness Walking meditation Koans Tradition and ritual Dharma teachings Lunch is included. Your RSVP helps us know how much lunch to prepare.
Koan Sesshin
With Jan Chozen Bays, Roshi and Larry Fuho Trussell
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. It has been 10 long years since we offered a Koan Sesshin. Working on Koans is a rigorous, full-time-in-the-zendo practice, and that, unless you are fit and healthy, it is probably not the best retreat for you to attend. We don't want people to be tipped over into exhaustion both by the…
Spring Zazenkai: A One Day Meditation Retreat
With Ed Gensho Welsh
April 19, 2025
Heart Of Wisdom Zen Temple
This is a silent day of Zen Buddhist meditation practice together, seated and active. The schedule includes meditation (zazen), chanting, caring for the garden and grounds, and Dharma talk.
Love & Spaciousness: A Loving Kindness Weekend Retreat
With Patrick Bansho Green and Myoyu Haley Voekel
May 1 - 4, 2025
Great Vow Zen Monastery
With wonderment on our side, and in relationship with all that is, we recognize the inherent compassion that naturally arises from deep and sustained presence. Held in a container of zen forms and the vibrant dance of a monastery waking up to spring, we will explore the nature of being anything at all! During this silent retreat our day will unfold within the practices of zazen, chanting, formal meals and a short work practice. Much of the day will be spent in the meditation hall practicing seated meditation together. Beginners welcome. 🙂 Please see our website Attending a Retreat at Great Vow Zen Monastery for more…
Service to the Temple
May 3, 2025
Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple
Working together is part of our spiritual practice, and allows us to honor and care for the sacred space that Heart of Wisdom provides in our city. Please join with community for this morning of practice and work together.
16 Bodhisattva Precepts Classes – Online
With Amy Kisei, Sensei
May 4 - June 8, 2025
Online
The beginning and end of our practice is ethical living; acting, speaking and thinking in ways that support the greatest wellbeing and awakening for all beings. Everyone is welcome to attend these classes, whether you have already formally taken the precepts, are considering taking the precepts, or you are simply curious about the ethical guidelines that rest at the foundation of Zen practice.
New Member Tea
May 10, 2025
Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple
Calling New Members~ The ZCO membership committee joyfully invites you to join us at our New Member Tea! New member tea is open to ZCO members who joined in the 2024/2025 calendar year. Come connect, make new friends, tour the temple, learn about ways to practice and the organization as a whole. It's a great opportunity to ask questions! Please RSVP so we can provide enough tea and treats.
Five Buddhist Precepts for Ethical Living – in person
With Ed Gensho Welsh
May 11 - June 15, 2025
Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple
These one hour online 5 Precepts classes will happen every Wednesday for six weeks. We all want to live a compassionate life. The precepts give us a framework for what it means to live an ethical life. More then a set of rules to follow, the precepts are deep inquiries into the actual living of our lives with attention and love. The format is an introductory talk followed by class discussion. Participants will be encouraged to do a short writing on each precept and practice with the precept during the week. There are also some supplemental readings.
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 path of their lives and opening the Dharma truths - just as we aspire to do. Join us for this intimate week of practice. Sesshin is a rigorous and, at times, challenging silent meditation retreat that is not recommended for beginners. In order to attend…
Jukai Ceremony at Great Vow Zen Monastery
May 18, 2025
Great Vow Zen Monastery and Online
Jukai is the process and public ceremony of taking up the 16 precepts, committing to practicing them in everyday life. People take jukai after some years of practicing with the community, establishing a relationship with one of the teachers, and taking part in sesshin. In this ceremony, people join the lineage so formally become a Zen Buddhist.
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 habit. In this retreat we will be given tools to expand beyond what we believe to be our limitations, and see our world from a place of insight and deeper wisdom. The monastery environment provides an ideal setting in which to deepen the practice of…
Drop of Stillness – 1/2 day retreat
With Kosho Ault, Linda Chōon Frischmeyer and Onkatsu Doug Kagel
May 31, 2025
Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple
Touch into the still point at the center amidst our busy schedules. This silent retreat will include seated and walking meditation, chanting service, and movement practice. Join us for a half-day of simply sitting. ~ Tentative Schedule 8 - 8:50 am Zazen meditation 8:50 am Kinhin walking meditation 9:00 am Zazen 9:50 am Chanting service 10:00 am Break 10:15 am Movement practice 10:45 am Zazen 11:20 am Kinhin 11:30 am Zazen 12 pm end Please consider the option to bring a bag lunch and stay after to eat together. Led by Community Zen Leaders Onkatsu, Chōon, and Kosho
Jizo Ceremony for Children Who Have Died
With Jan Chozen Bays, Roshi
May 31, 2025
Great Vow Zen Monastery
The loss of a child often opens a well of profound grief. No matter how the child dies, suddenly or slowly, whether through illness, accident, miscarriage, abortion, or suicide, our sorrow is deep and may be long-lasting.
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 and the world with love’s energy. In this retreat we will engage various practices for opening the aperture of the heart wider than its default setting with the goal of familiarizing ourselves with just how much freedom we have to be warm and open, even…
Solstice Zazenkai: A One Day Meditation Retreat
With Larry Fuho Trussell
June 21, 2025
Heart Of Wisdom Zen Temple
This is a silent day of Zen Buddhist meditation practice together, seated and active. The schedule includes meditation (zazen), chanting, caring for the garden and grounds, and Dharma talk.
Mindful Eating Weekend Retreat
With Jan Chozen Bays, Roshi
June 27 - 29, 2025
Great Vow Zen Monastery
It can be so easy to lose touch with the basic joys of our life. With eating, the simple exploration of texture, smell, taste and touch, can bring us into deep presence and ease. What is it like to truly taste a raisin? How often do we just eat, without a cellphone or radio, without distraction? Chozen Bays Roshi has been teaching mindful eating for decades. We eat to be nourished, body, heart and mind. With mindfulness practices and community support, we can learn together - the art of eating, and the joys of being nourished. In this workshop we…
Summer Residency Program 2025
July 8 - August 17, 2025
Great Vow Zen Monastery
The Summer Program at Great Vow Zen Monastery is an opportunity to plunge into Zen practice with the support of community and teachers, and to taste the benefits of calming the mind and opening the heart. Our Summer Program is a special part of our on-going residential program at the monastery. It is designed to give you a genuine immersion in Zen practice, through the practices of meditation, mindful eating. ritual/liturgy, movement practices (yoga/qi gong), and temple work.
Summer Zazenkai: A One Day Meditation Retreat
With Darah Shonin Ashton
July 19, 2025
Heart Of Wisdom Zen Temple
This is a silent day of Zen Buddhist meditation practice together, seated and active. The schedule includes meditation (zazen), chanting, caring for the garden and grounds, and Dharma talk.
July Sesshin – Summer Breeze
With Patrick Bansho Green 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 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 will spend time learning from each of the five elements, as they manifest in our experience. Deeply exploring and releasing into our interconnection with the living, breathing body of the Earth, waters, energizing air, bright fiery sun, and vast spacious sky. This retreat is held…
Jizo Sesshin
With Jan Chozen Bays, Roshi and Laura Jomon Martin
September 9 - 14, 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 and talk about Jizo. As part of our practice, we will be making small Jizo-related items. Due to the nature of this retreat schedule, we will be sitting outside and also out of the zendo to make art, there will not be an online option.…
Annual Dinner 2025
September 27, 2025
Saint Andrew Catholic Church
Once a year we gather for a dinner celebration to reflect on what we've accomplished and intentions for the year ahead.
Autumn Ango – Fall Residency 2025
With Hogen and Chozen Roshi, Patrick Bansho Green and Myoyu Haley Voekel
October 7 - December 21, 2025
Great Vow Zen Monastery
This Dharma is abundantly present in each human being, but if we do not practice it, it does not manifest itself, and if we do not experience it, it cannot be realized. - Dogen Zenji In communion with our ancestors who set aside time each year for deep retreat, the Monastery offers this Autumn Ango. Ango is a celebration of stillness and quiet contemplation, upheld with the support of community and teachers. Ango can be translated to mean peaceful dwelling. During this practice period our daily schedule takes on a tone of a light retreat which includes more zazen (about…
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 into the bare bones essentials of our lives. We have this rare opportunity to turn towards the practice/awakening that is our true nature, and to celebrate quietly together in the container of sesshin. Day after day plunge into the waters of mystery and exploration. Turn…
November Sesshin – Gratitude
With Laura Jomon Martin, Myoyu Haley Voekel and Anusha Enryu Fernando
November 10 - 16, 2025
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, while always welcome, are particularly helpful! Bring food that you like to eat, bring food that will challenge our kitchen team and cook. The head cook (tenzo) will need to dive into creativity and allow the surprises of each donation manifest our meals. We will otherwise…
December Sesshin – Rohatsu
With Hogen Bays, Roshi, Larry Fuho Trussell and Myoyu Haley Voekel
December 7 - 14, 2025
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 culmination of a year of practice and is also the culmination of our fall Ango practice period. At many centers and monasteries, this is the most valued sesshin of the year, and may be the only one that many people are able to attend. We…