Opening the Heart of Poetry: Writing as a Practice of Transformation & Discovery

Jane Hirshfield brings thirty years of poetry and Zen practice to this retreat at Tassajara, San Francisco Zen Center's mountain monastery. The retreat doesn't treat writing and meditation as separate disciplines — instead, it explores how attention developed on the cushion directly shapes the precision and clarity of language on the page. If you've sat sesshin before, you'll recognize the structure: silent mornings, formal schedule, the particular quality of attention that comes from sustained practice in community. If you're new to Zen retreats, this retreat offers an entry point through a familiar gateway: the work you already do, or want to do, as a writer.

The schedule weaves meditation, writing practice, and poetry study. Mornings typically include zazen (sitting meditation) and kinhin (walking meditation). Afternoons and evenings balance craft instruction, group discussion of poems, and time for individual writing. Tassajara's isolation and natural setting — deep in the mountains above Carmel Valley — create conditions for the kind of sustained attention both meditation and writing require. There's no wifi, no cell service, no distraction except the work itself.

Hirshfield's teaching draws on classical Japanese and Chinese poetry, contemporary American work, and her own decades of practice in both traditions. She doesn't ask you to write like a Buddhist or to turn your poems into dharma lessons. Instead, she examines how precision of language mirrors precision of mind, how the poet's attention to detail, breath, and silence mirrors the meditator's. The writing that emerges from this retreat tends to be quieter, more grounded, less concerned with performance.

Lodging is simple: shared or private rooms in the monastery. Meals are vegetarian, eaten in oryoki style (formal, silent). Bring warm layers — mountain nights are cold even in June. This is a working retreat: expect full days and early mornings. It's also held in one of the most beautiful monastery settings in North America.