Dragon Mountain Temple
Crestone, Colorado

Dragon Mountain Temple is a small, experimental, zen temple in the Shunryu Suzuki-roshi lineage. We are located near Crestone in the San Luis Valley, just North of the Great Sand Dunes National Park in south central Colorado. The new temple complex was completed in March 2006, after eight years of practice here in the Crestone area. We built the temple to be able to focalize the practice on our ongoing dedication to intensive meditation life (sesshin)...

Kijun Tenryu Steven Allen, the founding Abbot of Dragon Mountain Temple, began his zen practice with Suzuki-roshi in the spring of 1971. He was given priest ordination in 1975, and remained at the San Francisco Zen Center until 1984. He began teaching in 1986 and has worked with various zen groups in California, New Mexico, Colorado and South Africa. His primary teachers have been Shunryu Suzuki, Dainin Katagiri, Zentatsu Baker, Zenshin Whalen and Issan Dorsey. Currently his teaching focus is an effort to help bridge the gap between Eastern and Western spiritual thought and practice by using texts both from the traditional Zen Koan system and the Western literary tradition. He has given lecture based on the works of Homer, Sophocles, Shakespeare, the English Romantics, Goethe, Joyce and Yeats. Examples can be downloaded from this link if your interested in a sample.

Our yearly practice schedule presently revolves around 6 sesshin periods, 4 of which will be seven day sesshins and 2 will be five day sesshins. Four of the sesshins will coincide with the solstice and equinox points of the yearly cycle. The other two sesshins are incorporated into the winter practice periods. The first practice period will begin November 8th and conclude on the Winter Solstice. The second begins February 9th and will end on March 31st. Throughout the year we also host 5-6 one day sittings.

Contact:

Please leave any messages at 719-256-5092.

Our address is:
P.O. Box 583
Crestone, CO 81131

Email:

info@dragonmountaintemple.com

Directions:

From CO Hwy 17, turn East on Road T toward Crestone. Drive 8 miles around 4 turns in the road. Pass Casita park, White Eagle village, and golf course all on left. Turn left at sign saying "POA" and veer right, not entering the POA parking lot. Road heads east with a fence ahead. Turn left before fence and go up the hill. Go 1/2 mile and Temple is on the left with sign.

From Crestone: Take Road T out of town past Camper Village till POA Sign. Turn Right and follow directions above. Please click on the below maps for more help:

Schedule  | Photo Gallery | Photo Gallery 2 | Lectures