Zen Leadership Training
Zen Leadership Training
Led by Dharma Holder Jitsujo Gauthier
June 8-July 1
“When we go to bear witness to life on the streets, we’re offering ourselves. Not blankets, not food, not clothes, just ourselves.”
~Bernie Glassman, Bearing Witness
In-person Only
INFO
June 8-June 11: A Street Retreat in San Diego with Roshi Genro Gauntt
A street retreat is a plunge into the unknown. It is an opportunity to go beyond our imagined limits. It’s the barest poke at renunciation, surrender, and letting go. We will live on the streets of San Diego with no resources other than our true nature, having to find places to get food, shelter, use the bathroom, etc., begging for money when necessary. By bearing witness to life on the streets, we begin to see our prejudices, privileges, and boundaries directly and recognize our common humanness. It is a way to experience interconnection and realize our responsibilities.
June 11-June 29: Zen Leadership Training at ZCLA
This Zen Leadership training will bring together a small group of practitioners to live in residence at ZCLA and follow a full-time schedule to cultivate engaged compassion on and off the meditation cushion from various Buddhist perspectives. The training will integrate the ZCLA calendar, as well as hold additional activities that nurture the seeds of sangha. Those who commit to this training will be deepening their relationship to seated meditation, ritual, eating and cooking together, being in nature, communication skills, service learning, study sessions, Dharma sharing, and engaging with communities outside the temple gates. Participants will contemplate what contribution they will bring to this training, being cognizant of ZCLA and its grounds, as well as have the opportunity to develop a personal leadership project that integrates their work, vow, and Buddhist practice. Part of the training will be making offerings, sharing leadership, and leaving things better than when we started, or at the very least leaving no trace.
Click here to view a tentative schedule.
IF you are interested in this, contact D.H. Jisujo: jitsujo8@gmail.com
June 29 (eve.)-July 1: Sesshin Led by D.H. Jitsujo
This Sesshin is a two-daylong retreat devoted to samadhi practice, offered both in-person at ZCLA and via Zoom, will be the culmination of a three-week Zen Leadership Intensive. With Great Silence observed throughout, it is an opportunity to intensify and deepen your practice through the experience of periods of uninterrupted meditation (zazen), walking meditation (kinhin), a dharma talk, service, face-to-face meetings with Dharma Holder Jitsujo Gauthier, as well as time for mindful work practice (samu) and meals. Zoom participants will have time to eat, walk and do their own samu at home, then link back into the sesshin schedule. Open to everyone, newcomers are especially welcomed to attend.
Click here to request Dharma Training Fund.
(If you have questions or concerns, please contact Myoki at programsteward@zcla.org)
REGISTRATION & PAYMENT
Jitsujo T. Gauthier is a Zen priest, preceptor and Dharma Holder at the Zen Center of Los Angeles, as well as a member of the Zen Peacemakers International. She is also an Associate Professor and Co-chair of the Buddhist Chaplaincy department at University of the West in Los Angeles county. She explores and practices of the Three Tenets in the classroom, chaplaincy work, as well as within seated meditation.