Zen Buddhist teachings and practices deepen our experience and can transform our life.
Crestone Mountain Zen Center is the Dharma Sangha Center for Monastic Zen Practice and for Personal Retreats. It was founded by Zentatsu Baker Roshi, the Successor of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. Suzuki Roshi founded the San Francisco Zen Center and the Tassajara Zen Monastery, and he is the author of 'Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind’.
The Buddha’s experience of enlightenment, release from suffering caused by the deeply held belief in a separate self, is the basis of Zen Practice and Teaching, which maintains that all human beings, in fact all sentient beings, are in their essential nature, free – “enlightened”. Human beings, because of attachment to the idea of self and its attendant greed, hatred, and delusion, suffer unnecessarily. Zen practice is how to realize this freedom and happiness that is our true nature.
In Zen, we assume that transformation and awakening are possible. We assume that it is possible to free ourselves from mental and emotional suffering. And we assume that it is possible to live beneficially. A Zen Practice Center ought to be a space that provides the conditions for this kind of realization. It ought to be a location that locates us: Within ourselves, within this world (our true body and our true home), and within the mystery of aliveness.
Crestone Mountain Zen Center is located in Southern Colorado above the San Luis Valley on the western slope of Crestone Peak. This extraordinary high-mountain-rimmed valley is unique in the world.
Zen Practice is the craft of mind and body realized through the experience of stillness and nonduality. Our effort is to make Zen Buddhist teachings conceptually, emotionally, and practically accessible to contemporary Western practitioners.
Personal and societal transformation is possible and necessary. We recognize and are incrementally and consciously engaged in this global transformation, which can only be consequentially engaged or else consequentially ignored.
Dharma Sangha is a ‚Wisdom School‘, rooted in the Lineage Teachings of the Zen Buddhist Tradition. We are just now building several curriculums for different ways of engagement: 1) A Path for the Monk; 2) A Path for the Lay Adept; 3) A Secular Path of Societal and Environmental Wisdom. Of course, it is also possible to participate on your own terms!
Zen Praxis is the text and craft of mind and body realized through stillness and nonduality. Our effort is to make these Zen Buddhist teachings conceptually, emotionally, and practically accessible to contemporary Western practitioners.
Our teachings and practices are rooted in ethical and actual experience. The key to opening our experiential horizons lies in shifting our reference point from our ‚habit and identity stream‘ to the vibrant and vast experience of shared aliveness.
We believe that personal and societal transformation is possible; that it is possible to be free from mental and psychologically caused suffering; that living in accord with how we and the world actually exists is possible; and that it is possible to live beneficially for all. We believe that these 'Possibles' can be realized through the craft of Zen.
Buddhism changes all the time, in some centuries through a creative individual, however, most often, Buddhist change comes through a creative sangha – exploring, applying, and evolving the practice and the crafts of Zen in their lives with others. Please join us in this All Around Turn Around!
- Zentatsu
Zen-Mind Beginners-Mind Readings
read & commented by Richard Baker Roshi
Sundays, March 5th, 19th, 26th, and April 2nd
"The aim of Zen Practice is the realization of a contextually presenced bodilymind, continuously and successively articulated, within experiencable, ungrounded immediacy."
On Sundays beginning in March, Zentatsu Baker Roshi will read a series of chapters from Zen Mind Beginner's Mind to an online audience, followed by discussion of the texts.
Please note that there is no reading on March 12th.
March 5, 2023 at 10 am: "Bowing Part I"
March 19, 2023 at 11 am: "Bowing Part II"
March 26, 2023 at 10 am: "Nothing Special"
April 2, 2023 at 10 am: "Single-Minded Way"
We offer a variety of ways for you to visit. Please explore the different options and choose what works for your present life circumstances.
During certain times of the year, we allow individual guests to stay as a guest, and create their own personal retreat schedule.
Come to one of our Zen Practice Events as a student to deepen you relationship to Zen Practice.
Experience living with Sangha while learning and deepening your Zen practice with a longer stay.
We are regularly posting Sangha news, Dharma texts, or contributions from members.
We believe that the future of Zen in the West is as a lay-adept practice. So, how do you bring Zen practice into your daily life? With our online programs and lectures we hope to support you in this process.
Our Dharma Teachers usually offer one or two lectures per week. Join our mailing list to receive notices and instructions for registering for online lectures.
A monastic practice center cannot survive without vital support from the community. By becoming a member or making a donation, you are helping us to maintain the practice center, provide student financial support when necessary, give our residents a small stipend, and keep the lights on. Thank you for considering!
Dharma Sangha comprises a Practice Center in the Black Forest, Germany; a Zen Monastic Center in Crestone, Colorado, USA, and an Online Platform, called Dharma Sangha Academy. We are open to anyone who is interested in our teachings and practice. You are welcome to visit us onsite or join online!
