ZMM Retreats

Upcoming Retreats at Zen Mountain Monastery

Explore Zen Mountain Monastery through one of our upcoming retreats. Please don’t let financial issues prevent you from attending a program at the Monastery. If you can’t afford the program fee, there are options. If you are looking for retreats at the Zen Center of New York City, click here.

Click here to read about our response to the coronavirus outbreak and the online programming we’re offering while our centers are temporarily closed.
intro To Zen

INTRO TO ZEN WEEKEND

Experience Zen training for yourself. Our most popular retreat and a great place to start.

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Coming To The Monastery

COMING TO THE MONASTERY

How to enter the schedule and life of the Monastery for the first time. Come visit us on Mount Tremper.

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ONE-MONTH RETREAT

Each month we’re joined by individuals seeking an immersive experience of Monastery life.

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RETREAT CATEGORIES

– Arts

– Buddhist Studies

– Introductory

– Meditation Intensives

– Women’s Retreats

Upcoming Retreats at Zen Mountain Monastery

Spring 2021 Ango

March 7 - May 30, 2021
Ango is a wonderful time to work toward making our lives more unified with practice. In addition to practicing moment-to-moment awareness in your daily activities, what other ways can you bring yourself into contact with the dharma during the day? Let this question guide you as you formulate your commitments for the training period...

One Continuous Thread: Home Practice Intensive- April 2021

with Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi, Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei and Ron Hogen Green, Sensei

April 19 - 25, 2021
Welcome to One Continuous Thread, a way to bring elements of a formal zazen intensive into your daily life. You will be able to view and participate in parallel with ZMM's Sesshin via live webcast. We've designed this retreat keeping in mind the unique circumstances that each person finds themselves in...

Exploring Environmental Justice: A Community Conversation

with MRO Sangha

April 29, 2021
It is a challenging time to be a bodhisattva here on Earth. The issues are complex and crises are happening on many fronts. How can Buddhist teachings help us?  The climate crisis, depletion of global resources and the overwhelming impact these issues have on marginalized communities are not issues the Buddha or Zen masters talked about […]

Introduction to Zen Practice Weekend (Online)

with Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi and Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei

April 30 - May 2, 2021
This online version of the Monastery’s popular monthly Introduction to Zen Training is an opportunity to engage these time-honored practices and begin a meditation practice at home or strengthen a practice that has already begun. Designed for those new to Zen training, this retreat introduces the Monastery’s Eight Gates program, an approach for taking up the whole of our lives as a path of spiritual practice. Led by a training staff of Monastics, Home Practicing Seniors and Teachers, this online immersion experience...

Beginning Instruction

with MRO Teachers and Senior Staff

May 2, 2021
Zen Mountain Monastery
A chance to receive beginning instruction in Zen meditation and an orientation to the Sunday program, which you will join following this brief class. You will have a chance to try out different meditation postures and set-ups, so plan to wear loose, comfortable clothing. Please plan to sign on promptly at 9:45, and in order to experience the full service…

Essentials of Zen – Attachments and the Path of Liberation

with Mn. Gokan Bonebakker

May 7, 2021
In this session we will explore the Four Noble Truths, the Buddha’s first teaching following his own enlightenment. These describe the cycle of human-created suffering, its basis in our attachment to desires, and how to find true freedom through a spiritual path that embraces all aspects of our everyday lives. The Four Noble Truths are […]

Ango Art Practice Series: All Forms are Buddha’s Sutras

with Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei

May 7 - 21, 2021
Often we think of faith in terms of having faith ‘in’ someone or something. This is one aspect. There is also the simple, pure experience of faith itself—the firsthand, body-mind affirming experience of faith or trust—not necessarily ‘in’ something, but rather as having faith or being faith itself.[…]

Ten Oxherding Pictures: Stages in a Spiritual Journey

with Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei

May 8, 2021
The spiritual path comes alive pictorially in Zen’s famed 10 oxherding pictures. The series of images depict a young oxherder whose quest leads them to discover, subdue and train a wild ox—their own heart and mind—as a complete transformation. The ox is enlightenment and the herder is you—the meditator, the searcher—encountering the gritty reality and […]

A BIPOC Conversation

with Larry Yang

May 12, 2021
We invite you to an evening of open dialogue with Larry Yang that will center the needs, experiences, and aspirations of those in the Mountain and Rivers Order who live outside of whiteness. We invite you if you are Black, if you are Indigenous, if you are Asian, if you are Latinx,  if you claim any identity that is marginalized by the embodied white supremacy that is present in most of the institutions and communities we are part of—including within our sangha. […]

Conscious Femininity: An Archetypal Journey for Women

with Sil Reynolds and Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei

May 13 - July 15, 2021
Open to those who self-identify as women.  There is no sense talking about “being true to yourself” until you are sure what voice you are being true to. It takes hard work to differentiate the voices of the unconscious.  —Marion Woodman Please join us for this series of three sessions to take an incredible journey into learning about and experiencing feminine archetypes and archetypical energy as a way to enter our uprise in consciousness and healing. […]

Livelihood

with Mark Sando Mininberg

May 13, 2021
The word “livelihood” usually refers simply to how we earn our money. But in Zen our livelihood is how we work with the dharma—and how it’s working through each of us—in every moment of our lives. An aspect of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path, Right Livelihood is integral to the practice of liberation from suffering. […]

Ango Intensive: At Ease Within Non-Perfection—Teachings of the “Faith Mind” Poem

with Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi

May 14 - 15, 2021
The Faith in Mind (Hsin-hsin-ming) attributed to the 6th century Chan Master Jianzhi Sengcan, is one of the most enduring teachings in the literature of Zen Buddhism. Known for its beauty and insight it has been a favored teaching by many of the great past Zen Masters. The poem can be studied and engaged both on the level of practice instruction as well as direct pointing to the essential nature of reality[…]

Beginning Instruction

with MRO Teachers and Senior Staff

May 16, 2021
Zen Mountain Monastery
A chance to receive beginning instruction in Zen meditation and an orientation to the Sunday program, which you will join following this brief class. You will have a chance to try out different meditation postures and set-ups, so plan to wear loose, comfortable clothing. Please plan to sign on promptly at 9:45, and in order to experience the full service…

ZCNYC Noble Path Talks and Sangha Study

with Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei

May 20, 2021
For ZCNYC Sangha Members: Please join us for the upcoming Temple Sangha Meeting. Beginning with zazen, we’ll then listen to the eighth Noble Path Talk given by a sangha member, followed by introduction to the Faith Mind poem by Master Seng-tsan led by Hojin Sensei. These monthly gatherings give the ZCNYC sangha a chance to […]

One Continuous Thread: Home Practice Intensive- May 2021

with Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi, Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei and Ron Hogen Green, Sensei

May 24 - 30, 2021
Welcome to One Continuous Thread, a way to bring elements of a formal zazen intensive into your daily life. You will be able to view and participate in parallel with ZMM's Sesshin via live webcast. We've designed this retreat keeping in mind the unique circumstances that each person finds themselves in...

Beginning Instruction

with MRO Teachers and Senior Staff

May 30, 2021
Zen Mountain Monastery
A chance to receive beginning instruction in Zen meditation and an orientation to the Sunday program, which you will join following this brief class. You will have a chance to try out different meditation postures and set-ups, so plan to wear loose, comfortable clothing. Please plan to sign on promptly at 9:45, and in order to experience the full service…

Introduction to Zen Practice Weekend (Online)

with Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi and Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei

June 4 - 6, 2021
This online version of the Monastery’s popular monthly Introduction to Zen Training is an opportunity to engage these time-honored practices and begin a meditation practice at home or strengthen a practice that has already begun. Designed for those new to Zen training, this retreat introduces the Monastery’s Eight Gates program, an approach for taking up the whole of our lives as a path of spiritual practice. Led by a training staff of Monastics, Home Practicing Seniors and Teachers, this online immersion experience...

Half-Day Sit

June 5, 2021
A three hour practice of connecting with the still point by letting our body- mind and heart take refuge. Let us sit deep into our well and show up from a place of love and courage-- the two things that throughout history have been shown are necessary in order to help humanity not only survive, but thrive...

Yogacara: Integrating Healing and Liberation

with Ben Connelly

June 10, 2021
How can we heal ourselves and our communities? How does our personal conduct, wellness, suffering, and trauma, relate to interpersonal and transpersonal systems? How can we give our lives to universal liberation without sacrificing our own well-being? These are the questions at the heart of Yogacara Buddhism, which brings Early Buddhist and Mahayana practice into […]

Queering Buddhist Traditions

with Bee Scherer

June 12, 2021
When we look at Buddhist practice and communities from the perspective of the marginalized, what we see and hear is that lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, intersex, queer/querying (and more) people often encounter specific barriers, and at times outright hostility, when practicing Buddhism. This seminar will be an exploration of where this marginalization stems from, which […]

Beginning Instruction

with MRO Teachers and Senior Staff

June 13, 2021
Zen Mountain Monastery
A chance to receive beginning instruction in Zen meditation and an orientation to the Sunday program, which you will join following this brief class. You will have a chance to try out different meditation postures and set-ups, so plan to wear loose, comfortable clothing. Please plan to sign on promptly at 9:45, and in order to experience the full service…

The Creative Self: Dreams and Writings of the Imaginal

with Fanny Brewster

June 19, 2021
Writing and dreaming are journeys for the Creative Self to explore. When we engage in these ways we can hold with care the images of the creative imagination. We are invited to come in close to our deep heart, and experience the fullness of our emotional bodies and minds so we can be better attuned […]

One Continuous Thread: Home Practice Intensive- June 2021

with Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi, Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei and Ron Hogen Green, Sensei

June 21 - 27, 2021
Welcome to One Continuous Thread, a way to bring elements of a formal zazen intensive into your daily life. You will be able to view and participate in parallel with ZMM's Sesshin via live webcast. We've designed this retreat keeping in mind the unique circumstances that each person finds themselves in...

Beginning Instruction

with MRO Teachers and Senior Staff

June 27, 2021
Zen Mountain Monastery
A chance to receive beginning instruction in Zen meditation and an orientation to the Sunday program, which you will join following this brief class. You will have a chance to try out different meditation postures and set-ups, so plan to wear loose, comfortable clothing. Please plan to sign on promptly at 9:45, and in order to experience the full service…

Beginning Instruction

with MRO Teachers and Senior Staff

July 11, 2021
Zen Mountain Monastery
A chance to receive beginning instruction in Zen meditation and an orientation to the Sunday program, which you will join following this brief class. You will have a chance to try out different meditation postures and set-ups, so plan to wear loose, comfortable clothing. Please plan to sign on promptly at 9:45, and in order to experience the full service…

Dōgen’s Chinese Poems

with Shohaku Okumura, Roshi

July 16 - 17, 2021
The ocean waves crash like thunder below the cliff. I strain my ears and see the face of Kanjizai. Upholding this, who could measure the ocean of merit? Just turn your eyes and see the blue mountain. Known as one of the great religious teachers of our time, Dōgen Zenji is appreciated for the poetic use of language which make his Shobogenzo teachings so compelling, but less well known for the poetry that he continued to write throughout his lifetime of teaching […]

One Continuous Thread: Home Practice Intensive- July 2021

with Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi, Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei and Ron Hogen Green, Sensei

July 19 - 25, 2021
Welcome to One Continuous Thread, a way to bring elements of a formal zazen intensive into your daily life. You will be able to view and participate in parallel with ZMM's Sesshin via live webcast. We've designed this retreat keeping in mind the unique circumstances that each person finds themselves in...

Beginning Instruction

with MRO Teachers and Senior Staff

July 25, 2021
Zen Mountain Monastery
A chance to receive beginning instruction in Zen meditation and an orientation to the Sunday program, which you will join following this brief class. You will have a chance to try out different meditation postures and set-ups, so plan to wear loose, comfortable clothing. Please plan to sign on promptly at 9:45, and in order to experience the full service…

Beginning Instruction

with MRO Teachers and Senior Staff

August 8, 2021
Zen Mountain Monastery
A chance to receive beginning instruction in Zen meditation and an orientation to the Sunday program, which you will join following this brief class. You will have a chance to try out different meditation postures and set-ups, so plan to wear loose, comfortable clothing. Please plan to sign on promptly at 9:45, and in order to experience the full service…

Beginning Instruction

with MRO Teachers and Senior Staff

August 22, 2021
Zen Mountain Monastery
A chance to receive beginning instruction in Zen meditation and an orientation to the Sunday program, which you will join following this brief class. You will have a chance to try out different meditation postures and set-ups, so plan to wear loose, comfortable clothing. Please plan to sign on promptly at 9:45, and in order to experience the full service…

One Continuous Thread: Home Practice Intensive- August 2021

with Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi, Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei and Ron Hogen Green, Sensei

August 23 - 29, 2021
Welcome to One Continuous Thread, a way to bring elements of a formal zazen intensive into your daily life. You will be able to view and participate in parallel with ZMM's Sesshin via live webcast. We've designed this retreat keeping in mind the unique circumstances that each person finds themselves in...

Introduction to Zen Practice Weekend (Online)

with Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi and Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei

September 10 - 12, 2021
This online version of the Monastery’s popular monthly Introduction to Zen Training is an opportunity to engage these time-honored practices and begin a meditation practice at home or strengthen a practice that has already begun. Designed for those new to Zen training, this retreat introduces the Monastery’s Eight Gates program, an approach for taking up the whole of our lives as a path of spiritual practice. Led by a training staff of Monastics, Home Practicing Seniors and Teachers, this online immersion experience...