The six-day intensive program is designed to help activists develop and deepen a meditation practice in an unrivaled wilderness setting. The retreat schedule will include twice daily meditation, Zen work practice, plus sessions that focus on deep connection with the land; group dialogue on stress and how we work with it; introspection on grief and despair held by today’s Earth activists; the overarching themes of connection and separation in our work; and how to take practice home and into the workplace. There will be additional opportunities for hiking, swimming, and relaxing. Accommodations for the retreat will be shared.
Dojin Sarah Emerson is co-Head Priest at Stone Creek Zen Center in Graton, CA. She received Dharma Transmission from Abbott Konjin Gaelyn Godwin of the Houston Zen Center in 2015. She has a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology from California Institute of Integral Studies, and has worked in the fields of mental health and pastoral care with children and adults. She experiences Bodhisattva Zen practice as uniquely supportive to inquiring into, challenging, and transforming systems of oppression, particularly racial inequities and the harm they cause within convert Buddhist sanghas and in U.S. society generally.
Katharine Dion is a writer and Buddhist eco-chaplain devoted to creating artistic and experiential spaces for people to connect with their deepest feelings in service of a more compassionate world. She is an ordained lay practitioner in the Soto Zen lineage and has trained with Tenshin Roshi, the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies, and Thanissara’s Dharma in Times of Heartbreak.
Tim Ream has been an environmental activist and Zen student for 30 years. Tim has worked for the Earth as an environmental attorney, a direct action activist, and many roles in between. Interwoven with his decades of activism, he was lay ordained by Tenshin Reb Anderson in 1993 and has participated in many intensive Zen retreats at Tassajara, Green Gulch Farm, and beyond.