Sesshin – Gathering the Heart-Mind
Crestone Mountain Zen Center, Colorado February 7 – 13, 2026
“The form doesn’t restrain us — it frees us from our preferences.” — Zentatsu Baker Roshi
What Sesshin Is
Sesshin means to gather the heart-mind: A profound willingness to become intimate with our experience.
For five days, we live within the forms of practice. From before dawn until nightfall we sit, walk, bow, eat, and work in silence. Each movement becomes a gesture of grounding, centering, and opening the mind.
Sesshin is not a retreat to attend. It is the living body of Zen - a week in which the world and the self become one continuous field of attention.
The form is exact and simple: sitting still (zazen), walking in silence (kinhin), taking meals in ritual form (oryoki), working with our hands, listening to the Dharma.
During the retreat, Tatsudo Nicole Baden Roshi will offer Dharma talks and brief inspirations within the zazen periods — quiet openings through which practice deepens from the inside.
Sesshin invites contact beyond control. It offers a profound intimacy with our own experience.
The Practice Field
Each day unfolds as a rhythm of stillness and movement, sound and silence, form and formlessness. The monastery itself — the zendo, the kitchen, the mountain air — becomes a voice in the teaching.
At 2,400 meters in the Sangre de Cristo Range, the high-desert light is sharp and clear. The silence of the land steadies the mind.
Decades of continuous practice have shaped Crestone Mountain Zen Center into a strong, steady vessel — a place built for turning fully toward the Way.
Who Can Participate
Sesshin is for experienced practitioners with a foundation in sitting practice and a wish to deepen their practice. If you have not attended a Dharma Sangha Sesshin before, please schedule a short conversation with a teacher prior to registration.
Sesshin is not a place to learn meditation — it is where practice matures.
What You Receive
- A week of immersion in stillness and form
- Daily Dharma talks and in-sitting guidance with Tatsudo Nicole Baden Roshi
- The steady support of Sangha and monastery
Each sesshin is unique and you need to be steady in body and mind in order to attend. There are no promises in a sesshin, but we will provide a supportive environment for your practice.
