Non-Residential Retreat with Judy Nakatomi
The Way of Love and Trust: Enlivening the Dreamer, Storyteller, and Memory Keeper
May 1–3, 2026
Dharma Gate Meditation Center
Schedule
Friday: 6:00–8:30 p.m. (in noble silence)
Saturday: 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Sunday: 9:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m.
Sunday BIPOC gathering: 4:00–7:00 p.m. (panel and community celebration)
If you would like to help out with the retreat, please complete this form.
More details will be shared soon.
Note: This retreat is offered in person only and is intentionally limited to 30 participants so we can cultivate an intimate container for deep listening and shared practice. We encourage participants to attend the retreat in its entirety. Our Friday evening opening is essential as we begin by building that container together—with intention, care, and collective presence.
Judy Yushin Nakatomi (she/we/our)
Mother, writer, life partner, dharma teacher in the Plum Village Tradition of Venerable Thích Nhất Hạnh, end-of-life caregiver and somatic embodiment practitioner.
Judy serves as ministerial assistant at Vista Buddhist Temple, grounded in her ancestral Jodo Shinshu tradition while nurturing BIPOC and emerging Sangha spaces in the Plum Village lineage.
She is drawn to listen to the dharma of forests, mountains and vast horizons, while staying attuned to dreamtime.
In another chapter, she worked in public service as a congressional field representative and co-founded a specialty tea company.
Description
The Way of Love and Trust: Enlivening the Dreamer, Storyteller, and Memory Keeper
This in-person, weekend non-residential retreat, invites us to open our senses to the Way of Love and Trust that our teacher, Thích Nhất Hạnh, reveals so eloquently—through his poetry, calligraphy, mindful walking, and the simplicity of a mindful breath.
As we gather, through ceremony, sitting, walking, chanting and sharing, we will connect through our senses, dreams, and stories—threads that weave us back into our true nature, our true home. In current times, when institutions attempt to scrub our stories, when cruelty and violence echo from the chambers of power—we remember that neither we, nor our stories, are disposable. Our stories are the blood and tears of our being.
Like the rings of a tree, our stories contain multitudes—power, resilience, and joy. They hold the memory of where we have been, who we are, and who we are becoming. These stories live not only in words, but in our bodies, our breath, and the way we care for one another.
Over the weekend, we will co-create a shared vessel—woven from intention, trust, and compassion. We return again and again to our true home: our body, our breath, our senses. Through ritual and deep listening with all our senses, we nurture reverence for all life as a form of love and cultivate a heart–mind that can blossom open. In this way, we support the Bodhisattva vow rooted in boundless love in action.
Bring a journal alongside your openness and willingness to co-imagine and experiment with new ways of dreaming futures rooted in love, trust, and our shared humanity.
Together we will nurture the dreamer, storyteller, and memory keeper within us.
We are the memory keepers for our land, our spirit, and our blood ancestors and descendants.
Welcome.