Welcome to a 5-day zen retreat (sesshin) at Skatboet, Värmdö, (Stockholm).
Everyone is warmly welcome, no previous experience with meditation is required. We will start on Wednesday evening (March 1st, 2023) and end on Sunday afternoon (March 5th). Full participation (all five days) is recommended but partial participation is possible.
The silent retreat will include sitting and walking meditation, dharma talks, work practice, and rest. Simple vegetarian food will be served. There will be a fee that covers the costs to organize the retreat.
More information will follow below in English and Swedish.
Sesshin is a Zen retreat in silence. Sesshin includes several hours of formal mediation (zazen), talks by the teachers, private teacher-student meetings, chanting, work periods, rest, and meals.
The culture of Ordinary Mind Stockholm is kind and welcoming for beginners. Everyone is welcome regardless of belief system.
Each day of a sesshin contains four blocks of meditation, which in itself contain about three sessions of sitting meditation of 30 minutes with walking meditation in between. There is the option of sitting in several different meditation positions, sitting on a chair and even standing meditation if the pain of sitting becomes unbearable. However, some experience with sitting meditation is helpful, although total beginners are welcome. If you have never meditated or been on a retreat before, please get in touch for tips on how to prepare yourself.
In addition to meditation, we chant sutras, go for a morning walk, Karen or Magnus gives a lecture (teisho). Every day, we cook, eat, and take care of the space together. A day contains approximately one hour of housework.
Every day there is an opportunity for a private separate meeting with Karen and Magnus in the so-called dokusan. It is an opportunity to ask the teacher questions about the practice or talk about what comes up during the sesshin.
Being able to experience our lives moment by moment exactly as they are is an exercise in awareness and compassion for oneself which is a central practice to our tradition. We practice just being - not trying to impress anyone or change oneself. Karen's teacher Barry Magid has compared meditation to looking in the mirror – there's no wrong way to do it! This is our practice in sitting and walking meditation as well as when we cook and clean together. In our daily life where achievement and comparison with others are the prevailing norm, taking an extended weekend to just experience oneself in the awake and intense rest we call Zen Buddhist practice is a rare opportunity.
We cannot fail to look in the mirror, but we can look away, as we all often do.
This weekend is dedicated to finding life by letting go of everything and with a kind hand seeing and embodying ourselves just as we are.
More info & registration can be found here
