This year’s annual late-summer retreat at the Empty Field west of Eugene was well-represented by Dharma Rain. This unique event, Cultivating the Way, is held on DRZC teacher Seido’s organic farm, and allows for a special kind of awareness of the natural world within Zen practice. The sweet little zendo is actually similar, though smaller and more rustic, and oriented the same direction, as our Sodo.

Work practice was largely in the fields (and the kitchen), and we spent most of the hot afternoons in the Ash Grove, doing zazen, kinhin, and writing practice.

This year’s retreat boosted the vital link between Dharma Rain and the Empty Field Zendo, bringing some of our forms and practice there, and experiencing the forms and practice that Seido and her group have been developing over the years. It was a time of deep stillness and wonderful sharing of sesshin.