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Grasses, Trees, and the Great Earth Sesshin

Location icon
79640 Quincy Mayger Road, Clatskanie, Oregon 97016, USA
Date
August 11 - 17, 2025

About this Retreat

Your Guides

Details of this retreat

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 at Great Vow Zen Monastery. Due to this retreat being held mostly outdoors, we are not planning a Zoom option for attending this retreat.

Lodging is dormitory style, however for this retreat we will open up a tent camping area. Please bring your own tent and sleeping bag if you would like to sleep outside.

Sesshin is a rigorous and, at times, challenging silent meditation retreat that is not recommended for beginners. In order to attend in person, we require that you attend one of our silent weekend retreats or a five-seven day silent retreat at another Zen Center before registering for our longer zen retreats. For more information about what to expect when attending a sesshin, click here.

Please plan on attending the whole sesshin.
$50 deposit holds your space; balance due on arrival. Read More

Schedule

Please note: this is an approximation; sesshin schedules vary with leader and season.

First evening
5:00 p.m. Registration begins
6:00 p.m. Dinner (informal) and sesshin orientation
9:00 p.m. Zazen and formal opening of sesshin
10:00 p.m. Monastery doors locked

All full days
4:20 a.m. Wake up bell
5:00 a.m. Zazen
6:50 a.m. Service
7:20 a.m. Breakfast (oriyoki) in dining hall
8:30 a.m. Work period begins
9:50 a.m. Warning bell to clean up
10:00 a.m. End of work period
10:30 a.m. Zazen
12:20 p.m. Service
12:30 p.m. Lunch (oriyoki) in dining hall
3:00 p.m. Zazen
5:20 p.m. Service
5:30 p.m. Dinner (oriyoki) in dining hall
7:00 p.m. Zazen
9:20 p.m. Formal Tea/Zazen
10:00 p.m. Monastery doors locked

Last Sunday
4:50 a.m. Wake-up bell
5:30 a.m. Zazen
6:30 a.m. Breakfast
8:00 a.m. Closing Circle
10:00 a.m. Sunday Program (service, zazen)
11:20 a.m. Dharma talk and formal end of sesshin
12:00 p.m. Lunch (informal)
Note: Schedule is approximate and may change
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Getting Here

Location icon Zen Community of Oregon, 79640 Quincy Mayger Road, Clatskanie, Oregon 97016, USA

Accommodation

Event fee Read More
Event fee (ZCO member rate) Read More

Customer Reviews

4.91 out of 5.0 average rating

5.0
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Fantastic Investigation
Was a very comprehensive yet stress-free way to explore the practice of Zen Buddhism and meditation. Will absolutely be continuing to engage with Heart of Wisdom moving forward. Highly recommend to anyone interested in dipping their toes into Zen and Meditation! Read More

5.0
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One day intro to zen
It was a well-organized, thoughtful day. I wanted to deepen my meditation practice and appreciate this opportunity. Read More

5.0
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One-day workshop
I attended an introductory workshop on Zen practice at ZCO on February 1. It was excellent: clear, concise, very welcoming, well-attended. The leaders were knowledgeable and dedicated. I learned exactly what I wanted to: best practices for meditation. The best parts were the actual meditation sessions, including walking, guided and sound. Thank you so much for offering this -- I traveled 5 hours round trip to attend and it was worth every bit. Read More

5.0
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I’m grateful for Zazenkai
The Temple and the Day held me and gave me so much encouragement to expand and deepen my practice.
Jogen’s Dharma talk was especially helpful to me. Read More

5.0
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Great Vow Work!
I really enjoyed the guidance and framing on this retreat.

I also very much enjoyed the cultural diversity and feel it really added to the richness of discussion. Very much a highlight for me. Read More

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