Registration is now open for "Awakening with the World: Silent Forest Retreat" hosted at Rainbow Lodge in North Bend, WA, by the UUC Zen Group (Bright Cloud Zen) and the Empty Moon Zen Sanghas, December 5-8, 2024. You may register as a Zen Practitioner or a Private Retreatant.

For Zen Practitioners, these will be days of intensive introspection in Rohatsu Sesshin, inspired by the days and nights the Buddha is said to have sat in meditation under the Bodhi Tree, awakening "together with the world and all beings" on the morning of December 8. Empty Moon Zen Teachers James Myoun Ford, Roshi, Dharma Holders Tom Daimon Wardle and Mo Myokan Weinhardt, and Janine Seitetsu Larsen, Osho, will support our practice. Rev. James Ford (also a UU minister) will be the guest preacher at UUC for the 9:30 and 11:15 a.m. services on Sunday, December 8.

Private Retreat Option - This is an opportunity to design your own private retreat to attend to the spirit: reading, sleeping, walking in the woods and breathing fresh air on your own schedule, in comfortable surroundings, with natural beauty right outside your door and someone else cooking and cleaning. Private retreatants may join the UUC Zen group any time for regular meditation periods, dharma talks, and Zen-style spiritual direction, or drop by the "open Zendo" anytime for silent sitting.

On Saturday evening December 7, we will hold the ceremony of Jukai. Two of our Bright Cloud practitioners, Marla Murdock and Steve Johnson, have engaged in study and sewn the rakusu, and will be given the Lay Precepts and receive Dharma Names. Family and friends are invited to observe, and can register to attend the ceremony or join us via Zoom.

Need-based scholarships may be available to UUC members and friends registering for the Zen retreat.

Click here for more information and to register.