Spring Practice Period: Nothing Lacking, Continuous Practice

This five-week online practice period uses a classical koan—the legendary poetic contest between Shenxiu and Huineng about the nature of awakening—as its central inquiry. It's structured as a container for sustained practice rather than a single retreat event: daily sitting, weekly classes and dharma talks, with two embedded sesshins (intensive sitting periods) to deepen the investigation.

San Francisco Zen Center teaches in the Soto tradition, which emphasizes zazen (sitting meditation) as the primary practice. Unlike Rinzai Zen, which uses koans as active puzzles to crack through dialogue with a teacher, Soto uses them more as objects of contemplation within sitting. The question at the heart of this practice period—is awakening something we achieve through effort, or is it already present and simply to be recognized?—reflects a central Soto concern: the relationship between practice and realization.

The format allows you to participate from home on a flexible schedule: daily sitting happens on your own time, but weekly classes and talks are offered at set times (likely via Zoom or similar). The embedded one-day and three-day sesshins are the intensive anchors—expect longer sitting blocks, likely with some coordination around start and end times even if you're sitting remotely.

This works well for people with existing sitting practice who want the structure of a guided period without leaving home, or for those who can't travel to SFZC's residential practice periods. New practitioners may find five weeks of self-directed daily practice challenging without in-person support; check whether dokusan (private teacher meetings) is available online and what the enrollment expectations are.