2026 Fall Practice Period at Green Gulch Farm

A practice period is a different animal from a weekend retreat. In Zen training, it means committing to the full daily life of a temple for weeks or a whole season rather than attending an event — and this one runs nine weeks, October 14 through December 15, with participants living at the center throughout. The listing itself calls it intense, and the structure supports that: the fall dates mean the period culminates in Rohatsu, the traditional year-end sesshin held in early December.

The program as listed

The stated core is daily zazen (seated meditation), work practice, study, and meetings with the teacher. Around that, the schedule builds through progressively longer intensives:

• Tangaryo at the start — in Zen training, the opening sitting period in which new arrivals settle into the schedule through extended meditation
• A one-day sitting
• A five-day sesshin (a sesshin is a concentrated multi-day retreat in which the entire schedule is given over to practice)
• A seven-day Rohatsu sesshin, the year-end intensive observed in early December

The vocabulary here — practice period, tangaryo, Rohatsu — comes out of Japanese Zen monastic training as transmitted in American practice centers. One gap worth flagging: the listing does not name the presiding teacher, even though meetings with the teacher are built into the structure, and it has not published a daily schedule either. Wake times, sitting counts, and the shape of an ordinary day aren't in the material provided, so ask the registrar directly rather than assuming.

Practical details

One price is listed: $1,208 for the full nine weeks. The listing does not spell out what that covers — lodging and meal arrangements aren't described — so confirm with the center before committing. There is no application process described, and the period explicitly welcomes beginning as well as experienced students, though a nine-week residential commitment is a significant block of time to arrange regardless of experience level. Note that the registration link points to a waitlist page, so space may not be immediately available.