2025 Zen DownEast Retreat Schedule
Zen DownEast - Diane Fitzgerald, Spiritual Leader
For 2025, there will be a seven-day retreat (sesshin) from Saturday evening, June 21 to Sunday morning, June 29, which you may attend in full or for one day or multiple days in a row. There will also be a four-day retreat September 4-7 and one-day retreats on July 12 and December 6.
All of the retreats will be held at Morgan Bay Zendo, Surry, ME. For more information, see here.
If you are interested in attending a 2025 retreat, please email dianeshoshin@gmail.com for additional information.
Howling Dragon Zen One-Day Retreats
with Jim Bastien
There will be six one-day retreats (zazenkai) in 2025 on the following Saturdays: June 7, July 26, August 23, September 27, October 25, and November 22. For the one-day retreats, you are welcome to arrive the night before and/or stay the night of the retreat, departing the morning after the retreat, or you may simply come for the retreat day or part of the day. Please see the calendar for more detailed information.
All of the retreats will be held at Morgan Bay Zendo, Surry, ME.
If you are interested in attending a Howling Dragon Zen one day retreat please email daikan@icloud.com and ask to be placed on the mailing list for additional information.
Embodying Zen
Saturday, November 8
9:30 – 4:00
with Paul Weiss at The Morgan Bay Zendo
In this retreat we will strengthen our capacity to ground our practice in the physical body; to drop the separating mind, and simply be the body. And to discover new ways to let the body be our teacher and meditation guide.
We will also take time to practice several gentle qigong movements that naturally encourage the integration of body, breath, energy, and empty awareness.
We will examine at great length the intimate relationship between the posture of the sitting body and the cultivation of those wholesome states that both support and embody the full expression of our integral being. We will see how the sitting body is itself a virtual meditation manual – embodying both mudra and mantra – that will coach us in cultivating and internalizing the integrated expression of our practice, and be a constant ally.
As we exercise our capacity for 'interoception' – that is, 'tuning in' to our bodies – we not only strengthen our power of concentration. We also learn to allow a greater integrated awareness of our mental, physical, and emotional states, not subject to the divisive and dualistic interpretations of the mind. And we thus discover a unified field of awareness that is also inherently healing.
As we learn to rest in the body, we come to experience it as a natural expression of our Buddha nature.
To attend, please contact Paul at 207-374-7035 or paulweissdowneast@gmail.com
About Paul Weiss
Paul began his zen practice with Hakuun Yasutani Roshi in New York in 1966. He spent the winter of 1968-69 at the Tassajara monastery in Califiorna. A friend returning from study in Japan informed him about Walter Nowick, who had recently settled quietly in Surry, Maine. Returning east, he immediately headed for Maine, where he moved in with Walter as one of his first students, studying koans and milking cows.
Over the years, Paul had studied in several traditions, including Zen, Ch'an, and Vajrayana Buddhism; and studied qigong over many years in China. He founded The Whole Health Center in Bar Harbor in 1981, where for forty-two years, along with his healing and counseling practice, he has offered regular extended zen meditation retreats. He has just settled this past year in Blue Hill.
