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Throughout the year Zen Open Circle offers opportunities for more intensive practice, in the form of Short Retreats and Sesshins. To provide these opportunities - even more so than the weekly meetings that sustain ongoing practice - is our core purpose as a Zen community. And it is where ‘community’ really finds its source.
Sesshins are usually seven or eight day silent retreats in traditional Zen form. ‘Sesshin’ means ‘to touch, resolve and convey the heart-mind’. ‘Heart-mind’ (‘shin’) is a subtle notion that becomes clarified by experience. ‘Shin’ implies body and mind coming together to a state of rest and far deeper, clearer awareness than is usual: a calmer, more radiant heart, indistinguishable from a clearer and more directly-perceiving mind. Life and world regain their original equability and brilliance.
Sesshin is the chance to experience and express your genuine self in this condition. It is the place where real practice is discovered. Every sesshin uncovers more about that matter. And the fruits of such deep practice and inquiry continue to arrive long after sesshin is seemingly over.
Details of upcoming sesshin, shorter retreats and other events are regularly announced on our Home Page (‘What’s On’) as their dates approach.
Since 2001 our teacher has also been leading regular seven-day sesshin and shorter retreats in Melbourne for the Melbourne Zen Group, another Zen community affiliated with the Diamond Sangha. MZG members quite frequently attend ZOC sesshin from time to time, and vice versa, encouraged in part by the generous concessional rate offered by both groups to interstate attendees. See website for all details of upcoming MZG sesshin and other events. www.mzg.org.au
MZG meets for regular sitting in a beautiful building in the grounds of CERES Community Environment Park, 10 acres of on the banks of the Merri Creek, East Brunswick, in inner-city Melbourne. CERES runs on renewable energy, conserves and recycles its water and waste, grows organic food; and teaches diverse audiences about more just and environmentally friendly ways of living. www.ceres.org.au |
