Talks and events — 2026

Fall Practice Period (Online 2026) - Upaya Zen Center

with Chris Senko Perez, Sensei Jose Shinzan Palma, Sensei Monshin Nannette Overley, Sensei Sokaku Kathie Fischer

A structured online Zen practice period with guidance, talks, and community rhythm. Practice periods are designed to make the path ordinary: the kitchen, the calendar, and the breath as the same field.

Sesshin During Fall Practice Period (In Person 2026) - Upaya

with Upaya Zen Center Teachers

An in-person sesshin nested inside Upaya’s Fall Practice Period. It’s an immersion in formal Zen training: long sits, silence, and the kind of simplicity that turns non-duality from concept into felt reality.

Self-Inquiry and Meditation Immersion in Colorado

An eleven-day self-inquiry and meditation immersion with Camino at the Vajra Vidya Retreat Center in Crestone, Colorado — a high-desert town long known as a gathering place for contemplative communities. As with Camino's other retreats, the work centers on self-inquiry grounded in emotional intelligence: meeting thought and emotion directly, learning to witness rather than suppress, and inquiring into experience without relying on prior belief. (See the Guatemala listing for a fuller account of Camino's approach.)

Family Retreat (Session 3) - Deer Park Monastery (Plum Village)

with Plum Village monastics

A late-year family retreat session focused on mindful living, connection, and strengthening family practice routines. The Plum Village approach highlights interbeing: the lived sense that self and world arise together rather than as separate islands.

Silent Power: Weekend Intensive

with Eckhart Tolle

A weekend intensive with Eckhart Tolle, among the most widely read spiritual teachers of our era — author of The Power of Now and A New Earth. In "Silent Power," Tolle invites participants to discover the invisible, transcendent consciousness that pervades all of creation, pointing — as he has for decades — to stillness and presence as the doorway into the Now and out of identification with the thinking mind. Tolle (born in Germany in 1948, educated at London and Cambridge) teaches a non-conceptual awakening: not a new belief system but a shift in the locus of identity from the stream of thought to the aware presence beneath it. The intensive gathers a large audience for two days of talks, guided stillness, and the quiet transmission his events are known for. Held at the San Diego Convention Center on the edge of San Diego Bay.

Rohatsu Sesshin

with Henry Shukman, Valerie Forstman

The annual Rohatsu sesshin at Mountain Cloud Zen Center, co-led by Sanbo Zen master Henry Shukman and associate master Valerie Forstman. "Rohatsu" means the eighth day of the twelfth month — Bodhi Day — traditionally the day the Buddha looked up at the morning star and awakened. The retreat honors that moment and takes it into practice, gathering as the year darkens toward the solstice, "bolstered by the silence of the coming winter," to deepen realization through zazen. Sesshin is the intensive heart of Zen training: long days of silent seated meditation held in a strong communal container, with dokusan — one-to-one interviews with a teacher — and daily talks. Henry Shukman, originally from the UK, is an award-winning poet and author (One Blade of Grass, Original Love), spiritual director emeritus of Mountain Cloud, and co-founder of the meditation app The Way; his co-teacher Valerie Forstman leads from the center's zendo. Mountain Cloud sits on two dozen acres in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains off the Old Santa Fe Trail — a small, handcrafted zendo in high desert country. The sesshin is offered hybrid: on-site residential, commuting, or online participation, with online retreatants supported by their own orientation, handbook, and break-out sessions.

Dorje Drolö Dzogchen Retreat

with Mingyur Rinpoche

Part of the Dorje Drolö Dzogchen transmission — a restricted set of teachings from Mingyur Rinpoche's personal lineage, offered publicly for the first time in 2026–27. Dzogchen, the "Great Perfection," points directly to the already-present nature of mind; this retreat centers on teachings that unite calm-abiding (shamatha) and insight (vipashyana) within the Dzogchen view, including Trekchö — "cutting through" to the natural state. Prerequisites apply, consistent with the transmission's requirements. Offered hybrid from the Tergar center in Madison. Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is one of the most widely known meditation masters of his generation — a Tibetan Buddhist teacher in the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages, known for uniting rigorous contemplative training with warmth, humor, and an unusual fluency in modern science. He guides the worldwide Tergar Meditation Community.

Spring 2027 Multi-Modality Conference and Retreat

with Angelo DiLullo

A weeklong conference-and-retreat with Angelo DiLullo in the Blue Ridge Mountains, blending his direct, present-moment style of awakening inquiry with a wider "multi-modality" program of breakout sessions. Where his silent retreats emphasize inquiry and stillness, this gathering opens out into a variety of complementary approaches and dialogue, at the Art of Living Retreat Center in Boone, North Carolina. (See the UK Silent Retreat listing for a fuller account of DiLullo.)