Open Sky Practice

at the Mountain Zendo

September 4-7, 2025

This is an experiment to take our practice under the 'Open Sky' and into a natural setting.

We will sleep in tents, rise with the sun, sit in the fresh air of the morning and the smell of the meadow, run an outdoor kitchen, eat our meals mountain oryoki style (developed for our Wild Dharma practice), and practice walking meditation on nearby National Forest trails.

Zenki Roshi will give practice instructions centered around body and sense awareness. By alternating sitting meditation and open dialogue about our experience, we will explore our relationship to spaciousness, nature, and the elements. There will not be a strict schedule, but substantial time spent in sitting meditation.

The Mountain Zendo is always within reach. We will use it for bowing and chanting practices, and as a shelter if the weather happens to be too adverse to practice outdoors.

Please note: This event is the only outdoor practice offered in 2025.

The Wild Dharma trip has been canceled.

Open Sky Practice Cost

Full members have access to sliding scale pricing:

$390, $330, $270, $210

Anyone can become a member starting at $30.

Become a Member

Before registering for Open Sky Practice, please email us with your intention of participating. After a phone meeting with Zenki Roshi, we will send you a link for registration and payment.

We want everyone to have access to this program in accord with their financial situation. If you need financial assistance, please send us an email, and we will use our scholarship fund to support you.

Logistics and Details

Arrival to Mountain Zendo Thursday, September 4, at 4:30pm
Arrival Dinner at 6pm
Departure on Sunday, September 7, after lunch at 2pm

We will be camping for three nights. Participants will share a tent in pairs of two and the tents will be provided. Meals, water, coffee and tea will also be provided. There is no need to bring additional food.

Gear List

This is a preliminary list of personal gear that participants will need for this event. Please note: Additional items may be needed and will be communicated by email as we get closer to the event.

Hiking shoes/boots
Rain gear
Sleeping bag, pad, camping pillow
Outdoor sitting cushion
Bowl and spoon (for mountain oryoki style meals)
Re-usable water bottle
Headlamp
Sun protection (suncreen, hat)

Complete Personal Gear List

Basic Practices

The following dharma talk (given in the context of one of our Wild Dharma expeditions) introduces six basic practices participants can take into the field. Listen in if you want to get an initial impression. Zenki Roshi will give further practice instructions during the Open Sky Practice.

Uncorrected Mind: Allowing your experience to be exactly what it is at this time.
Breath Attention
Bodyfulness
The Four Elements
The Six Senses
Inquiry

Open Sky: Basic Practices

The Practice of Being Alive

by Zenki Dillo Roshi

We are fascinated and nourished by wild nature, yet we are strangely alienated from it by our civilized, sheltered human lives. How will we come to recognize ourselves as one of the many life forms that co-create the beauty and ordinary magic of the earth, our home?

Buddhism, we can say, is to study and practice how to be fully alive.

Dharma practice is to actively investigate that aliveness through still sitting, through studying wisdom teachings, and through entering the moment-to-moment appearance of the world with our whole body and mind.

The brewing ecological crisis of our times urgently calls for our response. We feel the tension between the enormity of the peril and our perceived powerlessness as individuals. Yet we must respond if we want to be fully alive.

Being alive means being alive with and through others, with and through mountains, rivers, oceans, rocks, pebbles, plants, animals, the sun, the moon, the stars – and with and through other fellow human beings.

If we don’t want to be stuck in a separate self looking out at the world as an assemblage of objects that are more or less useful to us, we need to get out there and immerse ourselves, and learn to see the earth as an intimate communion of life forms that not only includes us but generates and sustains us – is us.

This is what Wild Dharma and Open Sky Practice is about. It is responding to our longing for wonder, beauty, joy, and connectedness. It is awakening to how we belong and are at home in the universe.

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Boulder Zen Center

2151 Arapahoe Ave.

Boulder, CO, 80302

303-442-3007

office@boulderzen.org