Soul of the Mountain Sesshin: A Backpacking Sesshin at Bells Mountain

This is an unusual sesshin format: eight days of full practice intensity, but in the wilderness rather than a monastery hall. You'll hike to a base camp in the Pacific Northwest, then maintain a traditional sesshin schedule of eight hours daily zazen (seated meditation), chanting, structured meals, and meditative movement — but punctuated by guided hiking. It's not a retreat from the outdoors; it's practice integrated into them.

A sesshin is a concentrated practice period, usually silent, where you sit multiple periods of zazen throughout the day with breaks for meals, walking meditation (kinhin), and work practice. The daily structure is tight and ritualized — wake around 5 a.m., begin sitting, continue through the day in alternating blocks, end in early evening. Dokusan (private meetings with a teacher) may be offered. You follow monastic etiquette: oryoki (formal eating practice) at meals, no talking, full attention. Here, that framework stays intact, but your environment is open sky and forest rather than a zendo.

This retreat requires comfort with backcountry logistics — camping gear, hiking with a pack, no amenities. The eight hours of daily sitting is substantial; prior sesshin experience or at least regular practice is expected. If you've done silent residential retreat before and want to practice in a radically different setting, this combines two disciplines that can inform each other: the precision of form meeting the openness of wild space.