NEXT ANGO INTENSIVE TRAINING PERIOD at Dharma River Zen Community in Winona, MN
February 16 to May 19
Head Trainee: Dharma Holder Trish Kojindo Johnson
Theme: I Vow To Show Up!
Shuso Hossen/Dharma Combat: will be held at the end of the June 2019 sesshin
Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/spring-ango-tickets-54526359810
NEXT ANGO INTENSIVE TRAINING PERIOD at Zen Garland NY-NJ Sangha in Mahwah, NJ
March 10 to June 2, 2019
Theme:
Registration: senseikanno@gmail.com
Zen Garland holds 1 Ango, Intense Training Periods, each year. Practice at Zen Garland is not based on a monastic model, but on the discipline of worldly life, where we must remain present and balanced while serving multiple roles and responsibilities. Our Teachers work with each individual to develop a personal Ango plan that deepens practice in harmony with life demands. We serve local community, visiting practitioners here full time in residence, and staff.
Ango begins with a weekend retreat and ends with a 7-day retreat. We hold a formal Entry Ceremony at the beginning in which each practitioner makes a commitment to an intensified practice schedule. At that ceremony a Head Trainee is installed. At the end of the Ango we hold a Closing Ceremony (Shuso Hossen) in which the Head Trainee gives their first official public teaching, then challenges their fellow students to debate in issues raised in the teaching.
History
Gautama Shakyamuni Buddha ordered his monks
and nuns to travel and not remain in
any single place more than three
days, But the monsoon season proved dangerous. Lives were lost and crops damaged by the tread of the Shakyamuni’s growing numbers of peripatetic mendicants.
Shakyamuni then decided to allow his disciples to band together in
dwellings and practice intensely during the three month monsoon period
each year. In the Zen tradition, Ango has come to mean a 90-day
period of intensified Zen practice.