Say A True Word & I Will Stay The Night: Open Mind Retreat at Bolinas On the Sea
MAY 7–10
Commonweal Center
Bolinas, CA
Say A True Word & I Will Stay The Night
Open Mind Retreat
with John Tarrant, Tess Beasley, & Allison Atwill
May 7–10, 2026
Thursday Eve through Sunday Noon
Commonweal Center, Bolinas CA
IN PERSON
Kanzeon is the goddess who hears the sounds of the world. That is her compassion, she’s not trying to win a compassion prize.
Judi was an ordinary, faithful sort of person who lived in a hermitage. He worshipped the goddess of compassion. He chanted her name and her song, “morning my heart is Kanzeon, evening my heart is Kanzeon,” and lived in a dream. But one day an unknown pilgrim entered. She walked around him three times, she banged her ring staff on the floor. He stared at her, open mouthed. She turned to leave and he said hurriedly, “You can stay for the night if you wish.”
She banged her staff again. “Say a true word and I will stay,” she said…
The true speech of the heart.
Join us
—John Tarrant, Roshi
John Tarrant and PZI Teachers will lead this retreat with a group of twenty-five participants or fewer. There is usually a mix of experienced meditators and complete beginners. We sit in a circle and meditate until it’s time to listen or talk, until it’s time to take a walk and gaze at the ocean, put our faces into the wind and feel our hearts shift in new and unexpected ways.
Pacific Zen Institute’s Open Mind retreats come out of our impulse to make a Zen meditation retreat that is native to American culture. When we take away the barriers to understanding, things just naturally shine.
This is a residential retreat held in a beautiful place on the ocean with a simple feel, and wonderful food.
People find that this retreat has a powerful effect on their lives and understanding of the practice of the inner life and the world of work and personal interaction.
It has the deep strength of an intensive meditation retreat inside a form that works for people with different levels of meditation experience. It has a flexible schedule that works well for those who would like to bring a partner or a friend.
No particular background in spiritual practice is required.
Bring a notebook. Also, if you want to paint or draw or play an instrument you can bring your gear.
RETREAT DETAILS
Cost:
Member Shared Room (double): $945
Member Single Room: $1175
Non-Member Shared Room (double): $995
Non-Member Single Room: $1225
Location:
Commonweal Retreat Center, 451 Mesa Rd, Bolinas, CA 94924
Dates and Times:
Four Days & Three Nights
Begins Thursday, May 7th, at 7:00 p.m. (dinner at 6, check-in begins at 4)
Ends Sunday, May 10th before noon (no lunch will be served)
Registrar:
For retreat, registration, and PZI Member Scholarship questions,
Contact Eleanor Silberman at [email protected]
TO REGISTER
This retreat is currently at capacity, but please email Eleanor at [email protected] to get on the wait list. There will be a second Open Mind retreat this summer from July 30–August 2. Registration and more details will be available in May.
Please also state if you would like to be in a single room, a couple’s room (2 people in double bed) or a shared room (2 people : 2 single beds.) Once the list has been compiled and rooms assigned you will receive a link to sign up. This process is to avoid overbooking which has occurred in the past as the spaces fill very quickly.
Scholarships are available for PZI members who need them through our donor-driven Scholarship Fund.
Not a member? Join us!
In Bolinas, the grey whales are migrating north with the calves close in, pelicans fly by like royalty, osprey carry fish and hermit thrushes pass through. Foxes are stealing shoes, small badgers are peeping out of holes, the ocean is breaking on Duxbury reef, and the great forces carry us too, as we had hoped.
In the field of meditation we welcome a spring that is larger than our difficulties or fears. There is a joy and renewal. We don’t have to get back into life. We are there already. —John Tarrant, Roshi
John Tarrant Roshi taught Zen in a traditional Japanese manner for about 15 years and then developed new ways to teach people who had no previous experience of Zen koans or even of meditation.
John has a Ph.D. in psychology and is the author of Bring Me The Rhinoceros & Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life, and The Light Inside the Dark: Zen, Soul, & the Spiritual Life. He directs Pacific Zen Institute. He has a special interest in leadership and in creativity.