Located just minutes from downtown Asheville, North Carolina, and occupying 16 wooded acres with stunning views of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Windhorse Zen Community offers one of the most complete Zen Buddhist training programs in the Southeast. With regular sittings, weekend retreats, longer and shorter sesshin, and professionally-oriented Zentensives, as well as other dharma events and an on-going residential program, Windhorse offers a range of opportunities for beginners and advanced practitioners alike.
The teachers at Windhorse, Sunya Kjolhede and Lawson Sachter, were ordained and sanctioned to teach by Roshi Philip Kapleau, author of The Three Pillars of Zen and one of the towering figures of American Zen Buddhism. The training at Windhorse includes work with breath, open awareness, and koans within the framework of traditional, non-dual practice. It also emphasizes awareness of the conscious and unconscious dynamics that inevitably arise in the course of deepening practice, with a focus on ways of integrating meditation practice into our lives and relationships.
WINDHORSE ZEN COMMUNITY PROVIDES:
TEACHINGS
Articles, Talks, and Webinars
RETREATS
Meditation Intensives & Workshops
CALENDAR
On-going Practice Schedule
COMMUNITY
Supportive Dharma Connections
ECODHARMA
Compassionate Action in the World
ABOUT WINDHORSE
Rooted in the ancient Blue Ridge Mountains just outside of Asheville, NC, Windhorse Zen Community is a group of people who come together to practice Zen, to wake up to the deepest truth of the Buddha’s teaching and embody it in the context of daily activities and relationships.
THE TEACHERS AT WINDHORSE

Lawson Sachter and Sunya Kjolhede were ordained and sanctioned to teach by Roshi Philip Kapleau in the 1990’s. The training at Windhorse blends the strengths of both the Rinzai and Soto schools of Zen within a Western context, using breath, open awareness, and koan inquiry practices.
We also work with unconscious forces that deep practice may bring to the surface – both those that are creative and inspiring, as well as those that stir up difficult mindstates that may undermine one’s dharma work.