Posted inDharma, General News & Announcements, Valerie's Messages

Message from Valerie: Sesshin

September 12, 2023

The Great Homecoming: Returning exactly where you are

This coming Thursday, September 14, the 2023 Autumn sesshin begins at Mountain Cloud. The sesshin will be online – sitting in your home, long sitting in the midst of everyday life – with a small group of residents and staff sitting in the zendo, anchoring our jeweled web of practice in that quiet earthen space. 

Sesshin – a time set aside to dive deep into practice; to immerse in shared silence and rest in boundless support; and to return, again and again, to the moment at hand. This very moment, just as it is.

The 8th century Chinese monk, Shitou or Sekito Kisen, described this returning in language that runs like a shinning thread through the Chan/Zen tradition as it seeks to name the heart of practice, of zazen: “Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.” 

Shine the light within, let that shining illumine through and through, and return to it – the light that is what you are, just as you are. And not only you.

See you in sesshin!

Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

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