New Year's Seminar 2027

We invite you to join us for Crestone Mountain Zen Center’s Annual New Year’s Seminar, December 28 – January 1. The seminar will be co-led by Laurie Nusbaum and nico hase and will focus on the topic of Sangha as the perfect life. We’ll explore the paradox of sangha as both an imperfect community and a profound expression of the Buddhist path.

What this is

At Crestone Mountain Zen Center, we welcome this turning point through shared Zen practice, Dharma discussions, and the Sangha—creating space for reflection, renewed intention, and a wholehearted beginning. Engage in Dharma lectures and discussions, deepen your practice, and connect with the Sangha. Together, we will ring the traditionally sacred 108 bells, welcoming the New Year with clarity and resolve.  

We spend these days following the rhythm of monastic practice. The monastery’s clear structure creates a space where deeper questions can emerge.  

Who is this for

The seminar is open to practitioners of all experience levels. If you have not yet practiced with us at Crestone Mountain Zen Center, we ask for a brief preliminary conversation. Please contact the Guest Manager at guestmanager@dharmasangha.org.

Seminar content

The seminar will be co-led by Seishin Laurie Nusbaum Sensei and nico hase, an Inside Meditation Teacher and Zen practicioner. Throughout our time together, we will sit zazen, participate in teachings and discussions in the mornings and afternoons, and share in the work of the seminar and the Center.

Sangha is the Perfect Life. Sangha is profoundly imperfect. It is full of difficult people, misunderstandings, disappointments, conflicting needs, and all the ordinary messiness of human relationships. And yet, perhaps this is precisely why sangha, in whatever way you define or experience it, in monastic or lay worlds, is the perfect life. Living and simply being with others, and practicing together, we encounter the limits of our patience, the stubbornness of our preferences, and the places where our ideals have yet to become embodied wisdom.

In this New Year’s seminar, we’ll explore the paradox of sangha as both an imperfect community and a profound expression of the Buddhist path. What if this messy, demanding, inescapably relationship life is not an obstacle to awakening, or even a preparation for it, but awakening itself?

‍

December 28

• Arrival 3–5 pm

• Introduction to Zazen & Kinhin (silent & walking meditation)

• Welcome dinner 6pm

• Opening meditation

December 29-30

• Silent meditation  

• Walking meditation  

• Daily work period

• Dharma teachings and discussions

December 31

• Festive dinner

• Dance

• Silent Meditation & 108 bell rings until midnight

January 1

• Closing meditation

• Brunch

• Departure 11 am

‍