Grasses, Trees, and the Great Earth Sesshin

Location icon
79640 Quincy Mayger Road, Clatskanie, Oregon 97016, USA
Date
August 12 - 18, 2024

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.

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

Getting Here

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

Accommodation

Event fee
Event fee (ZCO member rate)

Customer Reviews

4.92 out of 5.0 average rating

4.0
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April seshin 2024 online particpation
Overall, the sesshin was very good. The dharma talks and instructions during sitting were extremely beneficial for me. I chose to participate online due to health concerns. Some aspects of online participation could be enhanced. Unless speakers were using a microphone I could not hear the instructions for what was happening. At times it was quite confusing. Also, it would have been preferable to receive individual sanzen just as in person participants do.

4.0
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Understanding the Inner Critic April 2024
I understand that this Inner critic retreat/workshop has been recently re-worked/updated and was, I believe, the first time offered in this new iteration. I found the content very good and the co-leaders were committed to supporting the group towards helpful outcomes! It was quite worthwhile and I plan on reviewing/doing further work. It brings a deeper understanding of my mind in new insightful ways. I loved the musical aspects and the different chanting we did. I appreciated hearing from others. I do have a few suggestions:

Group exercises: Have a worksheet handout for each exercise listing the given questions w/room to write responses, so people can use this to help prompt their inquiry and also have something to review or use further afterwards.

Tools and Resources: have a take-away handout for terms written on the whiteboard during this presentation/discussion, with brief, basic definitions for each, and possibly also 1-3 references to websites or books, or other leads to seek further info post-workshop.

The co-leaders sometimes spoke too fast for me in delivering new content.

5.0
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Wonderful teachers and community
I have gotten so much from practicing with ZCO. It's given me a whole new life. I have come to trust these teachers more and more over time.

Not only are their retreats powerful and wonderful, but they're extremely reasonably priced.

I think this place is underrated. I highly recommend it.

5.0
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🙏
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5.0
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zoom
I have attended some retreats in person. I am glad to have the experience. With Zoom I felt included, and it makes it easier for me to carry the meditations over in my daily life.
The retreat has of course a zen background but any faith or non faith could follow it. This is a yearly retreat about death and loss in our lives. I benefited from the guided visionary meditation. The talks were easy to follow and many were funny. The teachers read from a couple of books wrote by living practitioners that have struggled with both. I have since downloaded both books and will listen to them again.
The teachers would spend 50 min. each day listening to those of us on zoom. And we could ask questions and advise. It felt like our own little community.
Plan to attend every year.

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