One-Day In-Person Wholehearted Activity Retreat, July 15


Event Details

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Location: Boundless Mind Temple at Christ Church Cobble Hill, located at 326 Clinton Street (at the corner of Kane Street).

Join us for a Wholehearted Activity Retreat, co-lead by dharma teachers Sarah Dōjin Emerson and Charlie Korin Pokorny.

Whether washing dishes, commuting, or sitting in meetings, unconscious karmic habits often drive the way we engage with the routine activities of our lives. Negative karmic conditioning driven by a sense of separation can result in feelings of alienation, tension, anxiety or boredom with what we are doing.

Through sitting, mindful activity and dialogue, we will study the habitual patterns we bring to activity and practice ways to support a more intimate, embodied, joyful connection with our moment to moment experience.

Lunch will not be served. Participants are welcome to bring their own lunch or go out for lunch (there will be an ample break in the middle of the day.)

We ask that all participants be fully vaccinated and boosted. Please see the BZC Covid Protocol for additional information. The COVID risk level will be confirmed closer to the date.


Registration coming soon.

Please note our cancellation policy: To request a refund for this program you must notify BZC in writing at least 2 days before the beginning of the program. You may request a full refund by emailing info@brooklynzen.org. This policy supports the organizing effort involved in managing registrations and cancellations and the largely volunteer-based structure of the Brooklyn Zen Center.


About Sarah Dōjin Emerson

Sarah Dōjin Emerson’s formal practice in Soto Zen began in 1996. She lived and trained at Tassajara Zen Mountain center and other sites of the San Francisco Zen Center from 1997-2007. She received Dharma Transmission from Abbott Konjin Gaelyn Godwin of the Houston Zen Center in 2015. She has a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology from California Institute of Integral Studies, and has worked in the fields of mental health and pastoral care with children and adults. She experiences Bodhisattva Zen practice as deeply supportive to inquiring into, challenging and transforming systems of oppression, particularly racial inequities and the harm they cause within convert Buddhist sanghas, and in U.S. society generally. Sarah has also worked for many years in grief support- clinically, ritually and in community- specializing in child loss. She lives with her partner, Charlie Pokorny (who is also a Soto Zen Buddhist priest), their children (who are her most profound and constant teachers) and numerous pets in Brooklyn, NY.

About Charlie Korin Pokorny

Charlie Korin Pokorny grew up in Hyde Park on the South Side of Chicago. He was ordained as a priest by Reb Anderson in 1999 and received dharma transmission in 2018. He practiced as a resident at Tassajara and Green Gulch Farm and studied koans with Daniel Terragno. Charlie and Sarah served as head priests at Stone Creek Zen Center 2014-2022. He teaches at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley (including courses on Buddhist philosophy, history, meditation and ritual practice). Charlie, Sarah and their children moved to Brooklyn in 2022.