Urban Sesshin 2024:
Being Time in a Tik Tok World
March 20 — March 22
Urban Sesshin culminates our Winter Ango intensive practice period and study of Dogen’s text Uji. Led by our practice leader, Shuso Jyākuen Posey, it is an opportunity to engage Dogen’s view of being time in a whole-hearted, experiential way via a series of workshops that will help us fine-tune our understanding of this elusive teaching.
Questions? Contact registrar@villagezendo.org.
Workshops
Wednesday Morning, March 20
Creative Writing Exercise with Paloma Enmei Martinez-Cruz
Wednesday Morning, Jyākuen, a watchmaker, will kick off the workshops with a look at the practice of watchmaking. Paloma Enmei Martinez-Cruz will follow with a timed creative writing exercise. For in-person participants, the afternoon will be an outdoor trip to the NYC Horological Society to study the history of watchmaking.
Wednesday Afternoon, March 20
Ujimprovisation: A Poetry-Writing Workshop with Filip Marinovich
Facilitated by our beloved Poet-in-Residence, Filip Marinovich, online participants will view Roshi’s video ‘Uji’ and be invited to write spontaneous poems.
Filip describes UJImprovisation below:
UJImprovisation:
Your time being is the poem.
Freely translating Dogen into Dragon.
This time
Being is the poem.
Thursday, March 21
A Memoir Workshop with Seiryū Wilkinson
On Thursday Marco Seiryu Wilkinson will lead us in a morning and afternoon session of creative writing. Seiryu, known for his 5-minute writing exercises that bypass the critical left brain, works miracles in getting us into being time and the creative flow.
“The self setting itself out in array sees itself:”
How was it then?
How is it now?
What does then look like now?
How is now a function of remembering then?
We’ll engage in life-writing through the lens of memoir as a genre fundamentally concerned with how the act of remembering structures time. Just who is this time-being manifested through the act of remembering?
Friday, March 22
“Being Time in an Era of Accelerating Time”: Roshi Joshin O’Hara
On Friday Barbara Joshin O’Hara , Roshi, will engage us in a reflection on the forces that contribute to our alienation from being time. Video clips from Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Modern Times’ and Andy Galsworthy’s ‘Time and Tides’ will help shape this exploration of how we currently experience time.
See Detailed Daily Schedule Here
Morning zazen between 7:30 -8:30am is open to the whole sangha and will take place at our regular online zendo link. The remainder of the day will only be available to registered participants.
WEDNESDAY, March 20
Regular Morning Sitting IN-PERSON and ONLINE
7:30am Zazen (Gatha of Atonement – 7:35am)
7:55 Verse of the Kesa, Stretch
8:00 Zazen
8:25 Work Gatha, Shuso words
BREAK
WORKSHOP BEGINS ONLINE
9:30 – 9:55am Zazen, Stretch
10:00 – 10:25 Zazen, Stretch
10:30 – 12:00pm Morning Workshop: Shuso Sherri Jyakuen Posey
Afternoon
WORKSHOP CONTINUES ONLINE
1:30 – 1:55pm Zazen, Stretch
2:00 – 4:00 Online Workshop: Filip Marinovich
Afternoon
WORKSHOP CONTINUES IN-PERSON
1:00 Meet at Gregory’s Coffee for a quick lunch: 58 West 44th Street.
1:30 – 3:00pm New York Horological Society, 20 W. 44th Street, Suite 501.
3:00 – 4:00 Kinhin in Bryant Park and Reconvening for Coffee
THURSDAY, March 21
Regular Morning Sitting IN-PERSON and ONLINE
7:30am Zazen (Gatha of Atonement – 7:35am)
7:55 Verse of the Kesa, Stretch
8:00 Zazen
8:25 Work Gatha, Shuso words
BREAK
WORKSHOP BEGINS ONLINE
9:30 – 9:55am Zazen, Stretch
10:00 – 10:25 Zazen, Stretch
10:30am – 12:00pm Online Workshop: Marco Seiryū Wilkinson
Afternoon
WORKSHOP CONTINUES ONLINE
1:30 – 1:55pm Zazen, Stretch
2:00 – 4:00 Online Workshop: Marco Seiryū Wilkinson
FRIDAY, March 22
Regular Morning Sitting ONLINE
There will be no in-person zazen on Friday morning.
7:30am Zazen (Gatha of Atonement – 7:35am)
7:55 Verse of the Kesa, Stretch
8:00 Zazen
8:25 Work Gatha, Shuso words
BREAK
WORKSHOP BEGINS ONLINE
9:30 – 9:55am Zazen, stretch
10:00 – 10:25 Zazen, stretch
10:30 – 12:00pm Online Workshop with Barbara Joshin O’Hara, Roshi
Afternoon
WORKSHOP CONTINUES ONLINE
1:30 – 1:55pm Zazen, Stretch
2:00 – 4:00 Online Workshop with Barbara Joshin O’Hara, Roshi
Workshop Facilitators
Shuso Jyākuen Posey
Jyākuen Sherrilynn Posey is a Watchmaker in the luxury timepiece field and an ordained Soto Zen Chaplain. Jyākuen writes about how chaplaincy and watchmaking are related and became a member of Village Zendo in 2015 and had jukai in 2016.
Paloma Enmei Martinez-Cruz
Paloma Enmei Martinez-Cruz is a professor of Latinx Cultural Studies in the Departments of Spanish and Portuguese and English at The Ohio State University. Author of Trust the Circle: The Resistance and Resilience of Rubén Castilla Herrera (2023) and Food Fight! Millennial Mestizaje Meets the Culinary Marketplace (2019), her recent chapbook poetry collection, Other Bombs (Seven Kitchens Press, 2023) offers a Spanglish-infused sense of social urgency to amplify the politics of possibility and find celebration in unexpected places. She directs and performs with the Taco Reparations Brigade performance project, and coordinates Onda Latinx Ohio, an arts initiative showcasing Latinx arts from the Midwest and beyond.
Filip Marinovich
Filip Marinovich (AKA Wolfman Librarian) is a poet living in New York. He is the author of THE SUITCASE TREE, WOLFMAN LIBRARIAN, AND IF YOU DON’T GO CRAZY I’LL MEET YOU HERE TOMORROW, and ZERO READERSHIP AN EPIC. Filip has been teaching the travelling poetry seminar MOTLEY COLLEGE since 2015. He also taught at Columbia University’s MFA Program, The Poetry Project at Saint Mark’s Church, and Wendy’s Subway. In 2011 Filip worked as a librarian at the People’s Library at Occupy Wall Street. He has performed his poetry and plays in Belgrade, Paris, Berkeley, Boston, and New York. In Spring 2007 a chance meeting with Ikkyu at East West Books on 5th Avenue directed him to the Village Zendo.
Marco Seiryū Wilkinson
Marco Seiryū Wilkinson is an assistant professor of literary arts at UC San Diego, where he teaches creative non-fiction and eco-writing. His lyric memoir, Madder: A Memoir in Weeds, was published in 2021 by Coffee House Press.
Roshi Joshin O’Hara
Roshi Barbara Joshin O’Hara, Co-Founder and administrator of the Village Zendo is a psychotherapist in private practice. She composes electronic music in her free time.
Registration
With the exception of the Wed. March 20 visit to the New York Horological Society, the workshops for Urban Sesshin are online only, with zoom links available upon registration. In-person practice at the zendo and online practice will continue as usual with morning and evening zazen available to everyone.
Fees:
All fees are suggested. Your participation is important to us. Give what you can.
Members
o $35 per day
o $90 for full Urban Sesshin (Mar 20-22) & zazenkai (Mar 23)
Non-Members
o $40 per day
o $100 for full Urban Sesshin (Mar 20-22) & zazenkai (Mar 23)