These are some introductory notes about the 30-Day embedded sesshin that Joni and I are hosting at our house this December 2008. The embedded sesshin consists of a regular (non-sesshin) Saturday meeting in November, plus four consecutive Friday-night-through-Sunday-noon sesshins. There will also be intermediate Wednesday night sittings. Here are the dates:
Nov 22 — Regular Saturday Sitting w/talk "The Necessity of Zazen"
Dec 5-7 — Sesshin (note: some will be doing Sesshin in Prescott)
Dec 10 — Wednesday evening sitting
Dec 12-14 — Sesshin
Dec 17 — Wednesday evening sitting
Dec 19-21 — Sesshin
Dec 24 — Wednesday evening sitting
Dec 26-28 — Sesshin
Sesshin instructions, daily schedules, and verses are on the sesshin information site at:
This embedded sesshin idea was born on New Years Day 2007, the last day of the very first sdzen sesshin. Mary Peck, Juan Villanueva, and I ended the sesshin by hiking to the top of Cowles mountain to watch the sun rise on New Years Day. After the sunrise, we got to talking about the sort of sesshins our group might do, and this idea just came up: why not embed a long sesshin right into our daily life? A whole month to just turn away, and turn towards the Zen life. Nothing dramatic.
We talked about this not just as sesshin practice, but as a way to better integrate our lives. Sesshin is all about integration, and yet, in our lives, it seemed that sesshin was something apart. Work, sesshin, community: the embedded sesshin would be a way to pull all of that together.
Fast-forward two years, Shosan at the end of the last sesshin (October 2008), and I brought up this idea again to the group. It was great: everybody seemed to like the idea! In fact, someone said "Lets figure out the dates." We talked for awhile more, and came up with the dates above, dates that actually worked pretty well for most everyone there that day.
One thing that came out during Shosan was the value of community support, in other words, our support of each other, in an effort like this. Our ordinary lives are not very supportive of this turning away.
So here it is: the first-ever sdzen embedded sesshin. A 30-day opportunity to really turn away from our stories and distractions, and turn towards our life, towards the core of what we are. It has been designed to not interfere with (most) work schedules. It is free of charge! And we will be easing up on the early mornings a bit (we will start at 6:45 AM instead of 6:00 AM) so that no one needs to get too burned out.
And, if that isn’t enough, it comes with a guarantee from Zen Master Bankei:
Learn to abide in the Unborn for thirty days, and from there on, even if you don’t want to — whether you like it or not — you’ll just naturally have to abide in the Unborn. You’ll be a success at abiding in the Unborn!
Hope you can make it!
Sam Gabriel, San Diego, CA
http://home.roadrunner.com/~clothespin
sam_gabriel@yahoo.com