Realizational Practice Studies
Presents
Dharma & Psychoanalysis
June 5 -8, 2025
A weekend at Seyon Lodge, Groton State Forest, Vermont
The British psychoanalyst, Wilfred Bion (1897-1979) and the Soto Zen master, Eihei Dogen (1200-1253), were both highly creative and brilliant writers and thinkers whose works share many areas of overlap. They both exerted a radical impact on their respective disciplines. However, despite the highly regarded philosophical and theoretical complexity of their teachings, they both shared the agenda of strengthening and deepening experiential realizational practice with an insistent emphasis on the present moment. The direct experience of practice animates their teachings and brings them to fruition for both Buddhist practitioners and psychotherapists in the Twenty-first Century. Both are directly applicable to religious realization and effective clinical work.
It is in the spirit of these great thinkers that we offer this retreat, which is specially tailored for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, psychologists, mental health practitioners, and seekers of the Dharma within the context of a Soto Zen Buddhist retreat structure and includes presentations and discussions on the interrelation between Buddhism and psychoanalysis from a variety of perspectives.
Experience with Zen meditation practice is not necessary. People from all meditative backgrounds – experienced or with little or no experience.
Seiso Paul Cooper, Roshi will present on the realizational approach framed in the writings of Bion and Dogen to demonstrate a fully integrated model for clinical work. We invite you to participate in an exploration of these disciplines deeply centered and nurtured in the shared intimacy of a practice-oriented silent retreat environment grounded in extensive meditation practice, which, in the spirit of Dogen and Bion, will function as the nodal point of the retreat.
The practice sessions are interspersed with presentations and open discussions by the participants. This is also an opportunity to share how the ideas and practices under discussion are lived out our in clinical work.
All-inclusive retreat fee: $645
This retreat is limited to ten participants
Realizational Studies Retreats Featured in Tricycle Magazine:
Barre Zen Meditation Center Kokyoji, (Eternal Mirror Temple) 