Women & Zen

Crossroads, Inroads, and Passages throughout our life and practice

August 20 – 22, 2021 at Kinstone, in Wisconsin

Led by Roshi Monika Genmitsu Kahn and Dharma Holder Trish Kojindo Johnson.

Social structures and cultural expectations have distorted and obstructed women’s passages throughout their life cycle. In this weekend in retreat form, we would like to notice, recognize and deconstruct these internalized influences that block our life energies. We do this together with personal dialogue, group processes, contemplative and psychological practices, rituals, dance, and journeys into the natural world.

From Monika Genmitsu Kahn:

This is not a training session in Zen practices. We will be embodying the Zen spirit of profound inquiry to explore our lives and help chart our own ways forward.

I’ve been dreaming about this retreat since my immersion into contemplative practices and Zen almost 30 years ago. In all my professional work and my spiritual practice, I have felt that women weren’t always free to follow their own path and let their intuition guide and unfold their energies. The disconnect from the natural world, social structures, and cultural and religious expectations have distorted and obstructed women’s passages throughout their life cycle.

Trish Kojindo Johnson lives, practices, and works in Winona, Minnesota. She is Co-Founder of the Manitou Center and the Dharma River Zen Community and is a member of the Teacher’s Circle of the Zen Garland Order. She has been my student for the past decade. We will co-lead this retreat.

Our intention is to create a safe environment where the participants can feel trust in themselves, each other, and in the group’s leaders. This will allow us to individually and collectively explore our lives, motivations, needs — met and unmet — and desires for our future. The atmosphere will be contemplative and reflective. We will ground the work by developing transparency and non-judgmental sharing by suspending judgment and criticism and greeting what comes up with interest, curiosity, care, and acceptance.

We have decades of experience working with groups and many techniques and exercises we can share. We want to leave the format somewhat open and flexible so we can personalize our time together. This way we can truly choose exercises and techniques that fit us rather than stuff ourselves into a pre-arranged package.

About Kinstone

Kinstone offers a beautiful setting for us to immerse ourselves in nature while working, contemplating, reflecting, and sharing. The group will remain together throughout the weekend. We will have very simple, basic sleeping arrangements and shared simple vegetarian meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner).

[From the Kinstone website]
At its heart, Kinstone is a land restoration and human rejuvenation project. This 30-acre site is a modern megalithic garden on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River in the Driftless Region of Western Wisconsin. It is a place of art and creative expression on a grand scale. Love of the earth and wonder at the mystery and beauty of the story that we find ourselves in is at its core. Founded by Kristine Beck in 2010, Kinstone is a deeply energetic place where people come and find they are “re-membered” and transformed in some way by the land, stone, sky, and natural world.