February 7 - 9, 2025

Registration opens January 22 and closes February 5
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Friday PM - February 7||  5-7pm Pacific / 8-10pm Eastern
Focus on Rest

Leader: Shinzen Young
Type of Program: Special Theme
Prerequisites: Previous experience with the See, Hear, Feel family of techniques
Fee: $10 per person 

Learn how to find/create pleasant restful states in all three sensory systems: visual, auditory, and somatic.

If you say “meditation” to the average person, they will probably get the mental image of someone sitting cross-legged on the floor trying to mellow out and release stress. Many – perhaps even most – traditional forms of meditation involve focusing on such simple, soothing experiences. There is a good reason for that. It creates a positive feedback loop; the more you concentrate on soothing rest, the more soothing it becomes, thereby motivating you to concentrate even more. This positive learning loop creates snowballing growth in your concentration power.

Restful states are frequently present in daily life, but most people fail to notice and enjoy them because they have neither the concepts nor the vocabulary needed to recognize them. This program will change that.

In preparation for this program, please

Saturday AM - February 8  ||  5-9am Pacific / 8am-12pm Eastern
Pleasure/Pain Reasoning: Theory and Practice

Leader: Shinzen Young 
Type of Program:  Experimental
Prerequisites: Some familiarity with the See, Hear, Feel family of techniques
Fee: $20 per person

In this program, we’ll explore the interrelationship between six factors:

1)    the pleasure/pain charge of the moment;

2)    how conductive one is to that pleasure/pain charge;

3)    the level of suffering or fulfilment one experiences in that moment;

4)    the impact of pleasure/pain on decisions;

5)    the impact of pleasure/pain on actions; and

6)    the impact of actions on objective situations.

In preparation for this program, no readings are required.

Saturday PM - February 8  ||  10am-2pm Pacific / 1-5pm Eastern
Transcendence: Expansion and Contraction

Leader: Shinzen Young 
Type of Program: Deepening
Prerequisites: Previous experience in working with arising & passing or expansion & contraction.
Fee: $20 per person 

In this program, we’ll go more deeply into the theme of Fundamental Flow of expansion and contraction. This represents Shinzen’s latest way of integrating the theme of anicca as its described in Theravada Buddhism with the theme of Buddha Nature as described in certain approaches to Zen. This represents an approachable way to touch the formless perfection that precedes, follows, and pervades each sensory experience.

In preparation for this program,

Sunday AM - February 9 ||  8am-12pm Pacific / 11am-3pm Eastern
Duration Training

Leader: Shinzen Young 
Type of Program: Accelerator
Prerequisites: Previous experience with the See, Hear, Feel family of techniques.
Fee: $20 per person

Sooner or later physical discomfort becomes an issue for everyone. Shinzen’s unified perspective on mindfulness provides a variety of techniques that can be used in combination as a kind of algorithm for dealing with that challenge. In this program, you’ll explore how to use Focus In to deal with your mental and emotional reactions to physical discomfort and explore how to use Feel Out for turning toward the discomfort and “penetrating” it.

If physical discomfort is an issue for you at the time of this program, you can apply the guidance to that discomfort. If you have no physical discomfort at the time of the program, you are encouraged, but by no means required, to explore the tradition of “strong determination sitting” (yūza). This involves sitting for long periods of time without intentionally move (but never to the point of objectively harming the body).

In preparation for this program,

Sunday PM - February 9  ||  1-5pm Pacific / 4-8pm Eastern
The Power of Don’t Know

Leader: Shinzen Young 
Type of Program: Special Offering
Prerequisites: Some familiarity with the See, Hear, Feel family of techniques (Just See, Just Hear, Just Feel, SHF).
Fee: $20 per person

In this retreat, we will explore how to utilize doubt, confusion, and indecision for psychospiritual growth. Three cultures have independently discovered the power of “Don’t Know.”

  • Ancient Greece, where this practice was referred to as epoche.

  • Tang Dynasty China, where it developed into kōan practice.

  • Medieval Christian Europe, where it was called docta ignorantia (which in Latin literally means “informed ignorance”).

Although it may seem paradoxical, suspending the need to know can lead to a new kind of knowing. In the Buddhist tradition, that new kind of knowing is referred to as a prajña – the wisdom function.

In this retreat, Shinzen will take you through a systematic procedure to explore this theme.

In preparation for this program, please: