Monday night meditation calendar for 2026.

All Monday evening meditation programs will be available via Zoom.
1st and 3rd Mondays will be in-person in Santa Rosa, as well as via Zoom.
4th Mondays will be dokusan and an open sit hosted by Gary or Michelle Brandt Senseis via Zoom.
Your weekly donations of support are gratefully accepted.

Details, Zoom link, and locations for the in-person meditation evenings are available upon request via email, contact: Gbrandt@sonic.net

The Spring Retreat date is March 13-20, Friday to Friday.

Full-time residential rate $1,250 for: 7 days of silent sesshin, vegetarian meals, daily dharma talks as well as opportunities for private consultation with a teacher.
We'll send out a part time rate sheet a little later.
To register, please send your check for $250 to the address provided at registration.
If you know anyone who would like to attend sesshin, please have them contact Gary Brandt (gbrandt@sonic.net) for a description of the retreat, etc.
If you would like to donate to the Scholarship Fund, please let Gary know.

CityZen 2026 Monday Night Program

January

05 Michelle Brandt Sensei

12 Closed

19 Rachel Mansfield-Howlett MLK Day

26 Dokusan – Michelle Brandt Sensei

February

02 Rachel Mansfield-Howlett Roshi

09 Deanna Hopper Sensei

16 Closed President’s Day

23 Dokusan – Gary Brandt Sensei

March

02 Rachel Mansfield-Howlett Roshi

09 Gary Brandt Sensei

16 Closed for 7-day Sesshin

23 Dokusan – Michelle Brandt Sensei

30 Deanna Hopper Sensei

April

06 Rachel Mansfield-Howlett Roshi

13 Deanna Hopper Sensei

20 Rachel Mansfield-Howlett Roshi

27 Dokusan – Gary Brandt Sensei

May

04 Michelle Brandt Sensei

11 Deanna Hopper Sensei

18 Rachel Mansfield-Howlett Roshi

25 Closed Memorial Day

June

01 Gary Brandt Sensei

08 Rachel Mansfield-Howlett Roshi

15 Rachel Mansfield-Howlett Roshi

22 Dokusan – Gary Brandt Sensei

29 Deanna Hopper Sensei

July

6 Rachel Mansfield-Howlett Roshi

13 Deanna Hopper Sensei

20 Rachel Mansfield-Howlett Roshi

27 Dokusan – Michelle Brandt Sensei

August closed

September

07 Closed Labor Day

14 Deanna Hopper Sensei

21 Rachel Mansfield-Howlett Roshi

28 Dokusan – Michelle Brandt Sensei

October

05 Rachel Mansfield-Howlett Roshi

12 Michelle Brandt Sensei

19 Rachel Mansfield-Howlett Roshi

26 Dokusan – Gary Brandt Sensei

November

02 Rachel Mansfield-Howlett Roshi

09 Gary Brandt Sensei

16 Rachel Mansfield-Howlett Roshi

23 Dokusan - Michelle

30 Deanna Hopper Sensei

December

07 Rachel Mansfield-Howlett Roshi

14 Deanna Hopper Sensei

21 Rachel Mansfield-Howlett Roshi

28 Closed for Winter holidays

2026 Sesshin

2026 SEVEN-DAY SPRING SESSHIN

MARCH 13 - MARCH 20, 2026

Full or part time attendance

Scholarships available

St. Dorothy’s Rest
Occidental, Sonoma County

Sesshin is an ancient Zen tradition; it’s a special environment built to help you discover your own awakening. Often in your daily life, the light of your attention goes out from you into the world; during sesshin you turn the light back inward into your own heart/mind.

We are so looking forward to meeting in person again for our Great Spring Sesshin. CityZen’s founding teacher, Rachel Mansfield-Howlett Roshi will be the guiding teacher for the sesshin. Senseis Michele Brandt, Deanna Hopper, and Gary Brandt will also be teaching.

We practice in a relaxed traditional form of sesshin, with lots of dharma talks and opportunities for meeting individually with a teacher. Our silent retreat is held at St. Dorothy’s Rest in Camp Meeker in the historic Lydia House, with stunning views of the redwoods and rolling hills and featuring exquisitely made hearty vegetarian meals.

We wholeheartedly invite you to join us for this precious week.

Rachel Mansfield-Howlett Roshi is a koan master in the Pacific Zen School lineage and the Founder and senior teacher at CityZen in Santa Rosa CA. With degrees in botany and law she is also a public benefit environmental attorney, law professor, cook, gardener, and grandmother. She is a contributor to The Book of Mu: Essential Writings on Zen's Most Important Koan and The Hidden Lamp, Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women.

Nothing has ever been hidden.

In W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn, there's an interview with an English farmer who at one point says:

“I have always kept ducks, even as a child, and the colours of their plumage, in particular the dark green and snow white, seemed to me the only possible answer to the questions that are on my mind.”

Your right place is always just beneath your feet.

Fish don’t run out of ocean,

And birds enjoy the endless sky.

How will you be any less fortunate?

Rachel Mansfield-Howlett

Reclaiming the Fallow of the Year

fal·low/falō

adjective: fallow (of farmland) plowed and harrowed but left unsown for a period in order to restore its fertility.

Synonyms: uncultivated, unplowed, untilled, unplanted, unsown; unused, dormant, resting, empty, bare.

In our northern climes, before the advent of artificial sources of light, the months of winter were a long dark time. Nature too, took her rest and there wasn’t much to do on the land for our farming ancestors. Long nights and cold days meant folks got a break from the busyness of life and entered into a more timeless place. The stillness without encouraged a slowing down, uncovering a stillness within. It’s the place before the formation of ideas; before an opinion or comparison arises. It’s the place of intuition, inspiration, improvisation and creativity.

What did our ancestors do during the long dark winter months? We can imagine that they told stories, stoked the fire, made love, slept, painted, played music, made something hearty to eat from what had been stored or was on hand, and bundled up and took walks.

Modernly, the lights are always on, figuratively and literally. We have lost something important to our well being in converting all of our time to the activities of the light. We can feel it in our bones when we flit from activity to activity, contantly looking for the hit that dispels boredom. Alternatively, we can become familiar with the activities that truly rejuvenate our bodies and spirit.

The following familiar story shows the value of emptying or losing track of the known, to restore the fertile ground.

A man went to visit a teacher to find out about Zen. While the teacher served tea, the professor talked about what he knew about Zen. The master poured the man’s cup to the brim, and then kept pouring.

The man watched the overflowing cup until he could no longer restrain himself. “It’s full! No more will go in!”

The teacher replied, “How can I show you anything unless you first empty your cup?”

Knowing is a kind of filter that limits our vision and closes off possibility. In other words, we only see what our knowing will allow us to see. Allowing ourselves a period of fallow both empties and widens the field. Laying down the realm of the known and unknown, relinquishing our usual tendencies to form opinions and judgments, to predict success or failure, we enter the vast and wide of the Great Way itself and allow ourselves to be reshaped by this undoing.

An old master said: “The way is vast and wide, how could it ever be a matter of knowing or not knowing? Knowing is arrogant; not knowing is stupidity; the way is far beyond both of these.”

Practices for the Dark of the Year

Slowing down.

Doing a single task with all your attention gives you a needed break from the jar of constant distraction. Doing a thing, wholly, brings its own kind of joy and you can learn to rest again in the gentle peace of everyday things. When you’re sitting with a friend, give them your full attention. If you are walking, just walk. If you are sautéing onions, notice their color and smell as they cook, the rhythm of the spoon in your hand.

Give yourself time to do nothing.

This winter sit in candlelight, stare into a fire, go outside and watch the moon and stars, listen to the rain fall, sit by the ocean and watch the waves roll in and out, rest on a bench and watch birds and passersby, rest by a lake or a river and notice the insects and trees and the sound of water over pebbles.

Put down your electronic devices.

Of course. Of course! A couple hours before bedtime, or for a time early in the morning as you are waking, put away your devices and the sounds they make to alert you of emails and phone calls.

Sleep.

Sweet sleep restores our bodies and allows the mind to rest, to dream, to let the intelligence of all things find its way into our consciousness.

Walk.

Anywhere. A short stroll or a long walk about, it’s what our bodies are meant to do. It reminds us of the true pace of life and shows us the aliveness of the world.

Read aloud to each other.

A forgotten art, we can take it up again. Like walking instead of riding, we slow down to take in more. Resting in the cantor of the human voice, we savor what we may otherwise have missed.

Make love.

No explanation necessary, right?

Listen.

Be quiet and listen. Notice when judgments and opinions arise, when you are comparing yourself to others or complaining about unimportant things. Then, just return to the place where you are.

Cook simple meals and share them together.

Find a local farm, bakery or supplier and gather some things that look good to you. Learn to cook a few seasonal meals that you will enjoy making. The simpler, the better.

Notice what has already been given to you.

You are given this life as a human being, each of your senses, this fine body, the moon and the stars, the green leaf, and watery sea, a home, food to eat, and each other.

May you truly enjoy the blessings of this season.

St. Dorothy's Rest Spring Sesshin morning

Chris Bell, Vikki Kath, Bill Krumbein

St. Dot's forest morning light

Spring Sesshin altar