Just Sit Saturday

Just Sit Saturday is a straightforward three-hour morning block — the kind of regular sit that anchors many Zen practitioners' weeks. It's not a retreat in the traditional sense, but a structured practice period that gives you the shape and pace of sesshin (intensive Zen meditation) in compressed form.

The format is classic Soto Zen: alternating rounds of zazen (sitting meditation) and kinhin (walking meditation). Twenty-five minutes sitting, five minutes walking, repeated across the morning. This rhythm — sit, walk, sit, walk — is how Soto centers structure their days, so if you're considering a longer sesshin down the road, a Just Sit Saturday shows you what that's actually like.

Soto Zen, the largest Zen school, emphasizes zazen as the practice itself rather than a means to insight. There's no koan work, no dokusan (private meetings with a teacher). Just showing up, sitting still, and returning to the breath or body awareness when the mind wanders. It's austere in the best sense — direct, unadorned.