Ango

Rev. Phil Sengetsu Kolman as Shuso with Benji Rev. Suzanne Isui Duggan

Zen Garland has 2 Ango, Intense Training Periods, each year. They run concurrently with the trimesters of Zen Garland’s Community Study Center and Seminary. 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 and ends with a 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, either a senior lay person or a priest. At the end of the Ango we hold a Closing Ceremony, in which the Head Trainee gives their first official public teaching, then challenges their fellow students to debate in issues raised in the teaching.

Ango Application

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.