BZC Residential Summer Retreat, Aug 7-14


Event Details

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Retreat schedule: Sunday, August 7 – Sunday, August 14
The retreat starts on Sunday, August 7, with orientation at 8 pm (participants can arrive as early as 2 pm; dinner will be served at 6 pm)
The retreat ends on Sunday, August 14, at 2:30 pm (participants can stay on property until 4 pm)

Location: Watershed Retreat Center

BZC Residential Summer Retreat

Kosen Gregrory Snyder, Shingetsu Laura O’Loughlin, and Kidō Ian Case will co-lead a week-long Soto Zen retreat this summer at the Watershed Retreat Center, which is located on a 73 acres farm adjacent to hundreds of state forest, two hours north of New York City.

This special offering is an opportunity to deepen practice through living in a rural residential setting and moving together through the rhythms of a semi-monastic schedule, which includes zazen, service, study, dharma talks, discussions, meeting with teachers, silent meals along with time for swimming or a walk in the woods.

The retreat will mark the Teacher Entrustment of Kidō Ian Case, a major step for Ian and the BZC sangha – we will open up for a public reception on August 14th (details TBA).


COVID Protocol: All participants must be fully vaccinated and boosted. We will update participants closer to the date with more details on masking and testing requirements.


Registration is now closed

You can add your name to the waitlist here.

Retreat cost: Flourishing Rate $1,800 / Supporting Rate $1,500 / Base Rate $1,200

Cost includes: retreat fees, housing (multiple occupancy), vegetarian meals (with option for vegan) and snacks.

We encourage all participants to register at the highest rate they can afford. The Base Rate for members is the bare minimum we need to meet our costs. We also offer scholarships to all those who need them; in particular, we encourage students of color to apply for funds set aside from a generous foundation grant. Please submit scholarship requests as soon as possible.

Transportation and dana for teachers is NOT included in this cost.

There is NO option for partial attendance.

We upped the prices to reflect costs.


About Kosen Gregrory Snyder

Kosen Gregory Snyder is a dharma teacher and senior priest at Brooklyn Zen Center, as well as its co-founder and current President. He is also the Senior Director of Buddhist Studies at Union Theological Seminary, where he directs and teaches in a Masters of Divinity program focused on Buddhism and Inter-religious Engagement. Greg received priest ordination and dharma transmission from Teah Strozer and is a lineage holder in the Suzuki Roshi lineage of Soto Zen. Greg is active with multiple interfaith and community networks organizing around peace-building, anti-violence and social justice initiatives, and currently sits on the Brooklyn Borough President’s Advisory Council on Faith-based and Community Partnerships. Greg’s practice of Zen and the dharma includes an understanding that personal and social liberation are a deeply integrated process of mutual unfolding. In addition to teaching in a formal Zen context, he facilitates Undoing Whiteness and Undoing Patriarchy workshops and ongoing groups that focus on investigating self-identities that may unconsciously perpetuate societal suffering. His efforts include ensuring the dharma is truly available to everyone, supporting young people in practice, developing a community-responsive Zen center, and advocating for bringing the illumination of conditioning around patriarchy, racism and economic exploitation to the center of our Buddhist exploration of self. He is devoted to co-creating an American dharma movement that fully embraces a deep social engagement focused on transforming inequity, bias and violence in ourselves, our communities and the world.

About Shingetsu Laura O’Loughlin


Shingetsu Laura O’Loughlin is a dharma teacher and senior lay practitioner at Brooklyn Zen Center, as well as its co-founder. Before she began training with Teah Strozer, Laura was a student of Darlene Cohen’s. She is currently a psychotherapist, affiliated with the Buddhist Psychotherapy Collective, with her own practice in Manhattan. As a clinician, Laura uses mindfulness and body-oriented practices to support healing and transformation. Before co-founding Brooklyn Zen Center, Laura had trained and lived in various Buddhist communities since 1997, including Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery and San Francisco Zen Center. Laura was also Director of Austin Zen Center, where among other things she studied the interface between eastern and western psychologies. Laura received lay dharma entrustment from Teah Strozer in 2017.

About Kidō Ian Case

Ian has been a student at Brooklyn Zen Center since its inception in 2005. During this time he has taken on various administrative and practice roles at the center, including serving for several years as Ino (head of the meditation hall). He was in residence for 15 months at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in 2015-2016 and was ordained as a priest by Teah Strozer in October 2016. He served as shuso (head student) at BZC for the fall 2019 practice period. Ian holds an MA in Linguistics from the City University of New York an a Masters of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary. He served as BZC‘s director from 2019 to 2022 and currently serves as Tanto (Head of Practice).