Ecodharma Residency

Mountain Cloud is bringing back Ecodharma May for its second year, including more teacher voices, more participant-leadership, and more ways to participate. This program centers the depth of Zen practice in the emerging field of Ecodharma. With onsite and commuter options, the Ecodharma Residency is a unique opportunity to resource ourselves, dive deep into practice, embrace the transformative power of sangha, and cultivate skillful action in the face of uncertainty and multiple intersecting crises.

If you’ve ever wondered how the natural world might take a more pivotal place in your awakening journey, if you feel a call to action in your meditation practice, if you want to experience sangha support more fully as a lay-practitioner, or if you simply feel resonance with the word Ecodharma, then this month is for you!

Over four weeks, this special cohort will ground in zen meditation, land stewardship activities, study and community practice, to answer for themselves David Loy’s 3 Guiding Ecodharma Questions:

  • What do I have to offer?
  • What are the possibilities (for good)?
  • Where does my heart call me?

We’ll explore these questions through a range of modalities, from the Tibetan “Mandala” practice for collective visioning to Joanna Macy’s Work that Reconnects, to Insight Dialogue, koan practice, and so much more. Our collective exploration over the month is meant to support us in broadening our perspective, in developing the tools for sustainability and resilience in this work both personally and collectively, and in clarifying what our role is in this moment.

“Being on this land, in community, and exploring how our personal healing journeys can ripple out into the world has deepened my sense of connection with all beings—and my sense of agency.”

– 2025 Ecodharma resident

Ecodharma Residency Includes:

  • Orientation Weekend – Friday May 1st – Sunday May 3rd
  • Weekend Retreat with Nic Redfern – Friday May 8 – Sunday 10
  • Day-long Retreat with Karen Waconda-Lewis – Saturday, May 16th
  • 6-Day Sesshin with David Loy – Monday May 18 – Sunday 24
  • Book Group Series – Wednesdays in May (public, hybrid) 9-10am MT
  • Wisdom Wednesday Series – Wednesdays in May (public, hybrid) 5:30-6:30pm MT
  • Dharma Talk Series – Thursdays in May (public, hybrid) 5:30-7pm MT
  • Action-Learning Project on the land each weekday morning
  • Visioning circles leading to co-created activities throughout the month
  • 1-1 Guidance with teachers Scott Thornton and David Loy
  • Workshops with local organizers and educators
  • Daily sitting (outdoors when weather permits) and extended time connecting with the land
  • Intentional community living leaning into the treasure of sangha

Scroll down to learn about the residency, click here to fill out the application, or jump here to learn about non-residency ways to participate.

Ecodharma is Zen dharma.

Sanbo Zen offers lay practitioners a pathway for discovering our true nature; for coming home to our inseparability with Earth and all beings. Whether we’ve tasted this truth or not, the journey of practice continuously expands our capacity to live fully, and enlivens our motivation to take care.

As we allow the practice to open our hearts, many of us become more aware of the suffering in the world, and become more willing to help relieve that suffering. In Ecodharma, we turn towards the increasing instability of our environment and the intersecting crises impacting us, the land, and our more-than-human kin. But practice is more than a way to notice and cope. It is a vehicle for us to transform our individual and community capacity to respond. Just as our practice calls us to ask, What’s mine to do?, Ecodharma teaches us how to listen for the answer.

This special month-long residency is a chance for us to do just that. It is a chance for us to gather together in an intentional community, exploring what each of our roles are on the Bodhisattva (or Ecosattva) path, and supporting one another as a collective.

The residency is built around the three pillars of Zen:

During this residency, practitioners will have ample opportunity to connect with the land and beings in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, practice with four Ecodharma and Zen teachers, build community with fellow practitioners, and explore how our Buddhist practice can meet this world in crisis.

  • Dharma: Learn from the land as a dharma sibling and teacher
  • Buddha: Cultivate skillful action in the face of the unique questions of our times, grounded by deep practice and no-self. 
  • Sangha: More fully embody the transformative practice of sangha through our relationships with one another as well as the land, and other non-human beings.

Ecodharma is an ongoing exploration at Mountain Cloud

Check out our Ecodharma Page to learn about all the ways Mountain Cloud is engaging with Ecodharma on an ongoing basis.

Ecodharma Residency: Activities + Schedule

Zazen (Meditation)

Residents gather with teachers and community members for daily meditation, with the option to sit outside when weather permits. Morning sitting is 7 days a week, evening sitting is 4 days a week. Click here for the daily meditation schedule.

Book Group

This discussion time is a chance to dive into Ecodharma texts together. Each week, we’ll focus on a different article or brief excerpt related to Ecodharma (exact texts TBD).

Land-Based Samu (Work Practice)

Each morning, residents will engage in samu (“work practice”) on the land. After taking care of the buildings, residents will have a project outside on the land related to updating our trails and/or gardening infrastructure as part of Mountain Cloud’s land stewardship program.

1-1 Guidance (Dokusan)

Residents have the opportunity to meet 1-1 with Sanbo Zen teacher Scott Thornton throughout the month as extra support for practice. Residents will also have the chance to meet 1-1 with David Loy when he is onsite shortly before and after the 6-day sesshin.

Communal Meal and Mandala

Once a week, residents will cook lunch together and engage in a communal dreaming discussion over food, offering a chance to build out and envision what Ecodharma looks like as a cohort and beyond. We’ll dream together and then co-create offerings for each other based on shared interests throughout the month.

Orientation Weekend – May 1st – 3rd

The month will kick off with the chance to get to know the Mountain Cloud community over food and storytelling, followed by a weekend of facilitated activities to orient us to the month. Exact details will be shared a few weeks ahead of the start of the residency.

Weekend Retreat – May 8th to 10th

Another chance to connect more deeply with the land through shared silence and practice, led by Nic Redfern.

Zazenkai – May 16th

A daylong retreat to deepen into reciprocity with the elements, led by Karen Waconda-Lewis.

6-Day Sesshin – May 18th to 24th

We’ll devote an entire week to practice in this Ecodharma Zen retreat, led by David Loy.

Throughout the month, additional workshops will be scheduled for the resident cohort with local facilitators, educators, organizers, and/or sangha members. There will be at least one afternoon workshop a week and a final workshop at the end of the month to support each other in processing the experience and moving toward what’s next.

“This residency has clarified for me that religious practice is rooted in descendence: using the insights I learn to feel everything and make life on Earth my nirvana or heaven…We practice Zen, not to attain enlightenment but, to awaken to our true nature…This way of collective, authentic expression extends beyond a single religion and directly supports social justice movements worldwide.”
– 2025 resident Emily Cribas, in her essay reflecting on the residency experience

Hear 2025 residents Nancy and Tim share more in-depth about their transformative experiences as residents during the 2025 Ecodharma Residency:

“There was so much juicy energy right from the beginning, and it just kept percolating…[The residency] was really energizing and kind of freeing…This energy inhabits me from that experience that is really sustaining…This was such a living experience of how enriching being in community can be.”
– 2025 resident Nancy O’Connor

“With regards to the polycrisis, which is painfully real, [Ecodharma practice] doesn’t help me turn a blind eye in any way…Ecodharma really helped me hold [the reality of the polycrisis] differently.”
– 2025 resident Tim Schieffelin

Residency Options

There are two residency options for this month-long practice period to accommodate different schedules and needs. Onsite residency includes participation in all the events all month long and has a greater daily time commitment. Commuter residency includes participation in all events, but some activities are optional depending on one’s needs, making for a lower daily time commitment. For both options, residents are responsible for their own food, apart from Monday lunches and meals during Weekend and 6-Day Retreats.

Onsite – $1,200:

This option is for those who wish to stay full-time at Mountain Cloud Zen Center. All activities listed above (weekly schedule, special workshops, and retreats) are required for those staying onsite. For those staying onsite, there is also the option to extend your stay through our regular residency program.

We have several different lodging options (pictured above) including:

  • Cabins are nestled among piñon and juniper trees and enjoy plenty of space and privacy. Cabins do not include attached bathrooms or running water. Cabin residents access bathrooms and showers in the nearby main building.
  • Cottage had multiple guest rooms in one building with two full baths and kitchenette.
  • Bell Tents. With over 20 acres of land, there are plenty of beautiful spots to set up a tent and sleep under the stars. There are also two 15 foot bell tents available throughout the month that include a bed and desk.

Commuter – $800: 

This option is for those who are local or who wish to stay somewhere in town and commute to Mountain Cloud for daily activities. For commuter residents, the following activities are required:

  • Welcome event and opening weekend ( includes full days Saturday May 2 – Sunday May 3)
  • Morning weekday schedule, Mon – Fri (Zazen through Samu, 7:00 – 11:00am)
  • Monday Community Cook & Mandala on Mondays, 11:00am – 1:30pm
  • All retreats (Zazenkai, Weekend Retreat, and 6-day Sesshin)
  • Final cohort workshop on May 30th (exact time TBD, not more than 4 hours)

Commuters are welcome to attend other activities outside of the ones listed above, such as evening talks, but they are not required.

Limited financial support is available. If you’re interested and finances present a barrier, we welcome you to fill out the interest form and we’re happy to discuss options.

Dharma Teachers of Ecodharma May

Scott Thornton (San’un-ken) is a Teacher in the Sanbo Zen lineage and a Teacher and Residency Advisor at Mountain Cloud. Scott provides practice guidance to residents and leads our weekly Book Group, monthly Aging Buddhas gatherings, and weekly Intro to Zen classes.

Scott and his wife, Guiding Teacher Valerie Forstman Roshi, came to work at Mountain Cloud in July of 2022. After an early career as an actor and singer, he turned to Clinical Psychology, a profession he has worked in for over 45 years (and from which he plans to retire in early 2026), though he still enjoys the occasional singer-songwriter gig! He began meditating on his own for 12 years before joining The Maria Kannon Zen Center in Dallas and beginning Koan study with Ruben Habito Rōshi in 2000. He continues his training with Henry Shukman Roshi.

Karen Waconda-Lewis is a tribal native of the Isleta and Laguna Pueblos. After her initiation into Native Medicine, she introduced traditional healing practices into an urban American Indian health clinic in Albuquerque, NM. She continues to expand this program into local hospitals, the Indian Health Service, the VA Hospital, and surrounding organizations. Karen integrates Western medicine with Native healing in preventive health, mental health, and overall well-being. She is the founder and director of the Center for Native American Integrative Healing, LLC, located in Albuquerque, where healers from various tribal nations practice their traditional medicine and extend their services to the community.

Karen is a Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader program graduate and has been practicing mindfulness from a young age, guided by her grandparents in her traditional tribal practices of caring for the land, gardening, cooking and animals. She regularly provides dharma teachings incorporating Native teachings in her community and nationally. She has intertwined Native teachings with Vipassana meditation, incorporating these practices into ceremonies, sweat lodges, and her community at Laguna Pueblo. At Laguna Pueblo, the ancestral teachings of mindfulness have complemented the Buddhist teachings at the Detention Center, providing insight and wellness to inmates and their families. Additionally, Karen co-founded the Annual Indigenous and Native Healers Silent Retreat and the Albuquerque People of Color and Allies Sangha. She has also been appointed volunteer faculty at the University of New Mexico’s School of Medicine, where she guides faculty and staff on tribal health issues and wellness support to medical students and residents.

In her personal life, Karen enjoys spending time with her family, including her daughter and two grandchildren. She manages the family ranch and loves spending time with ancestral lands and caring for its inhabitants.

Nicola Redfern is an Insight Dialogue Retreat Teacher with an extensive background in both Zen and Vipassana meditation. With a strong belief that awakening is not simply a solo endeavor, Nic is particularly interested in getting meditation and dharma insight fully integrated and embodied in life, work, social justice, and all relationships. She has taught multiple courses on eco-dharma, unlearning racism, and Nonviolent Communication, as well as programs for LGBTQIA+. Nicola is originally from the UK and now lives near Santa Fe, NM.

David Robert Loy is a professor, writer, and Zen teacher in the Sanbo Zen tradition of Japanese Zen Buddhism. He is a prolific author, whose articles appear regularly in the pages of major journals such as Tikkun and Buddhist magazines including Tricycle, Lion’s Roar, and Buddhadharma, as well as in a variety of scholarly journals. Many of his writings, as well as audio and video talks and interviews, are available on the web. He is on the advisory boards of Buddhist Global Relief, the Clear View Project, Zen Peacemakers, and the Ernest Becker Foundation. David is one of the founding members of the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center, near Boulder, Colorado. Learn more about David at https://www.davidloy.org/


Ecodharma Residency Application

Application forms are reviewed on a rolling basis. Once your application is received, a committee of staff and teachers will review applications and schedule one-on-one video calls with each person. The committee will then let applicants know of their status within two weeks of the video call.

If you’re interested in the program but not fully sure it’s right for you, go ahead and fill out an application, and we’re happy to answer your questions and talk through the program with you.

Submit your application here.


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