One Continuous Thread: Home Practice Intensive—November

This retreat inverts the usual sesshin structure: instead of leaving home to sit in silence for six days, you stay home and weave zazen into your existing life. It's a useful format for people who can't take a week off but want to practice alongside a container—the monastery's schedule running in parallel, live-streamed, gives you structure and timing without requiring you to be physically present.

You have real choices here. You can wake with the monastery, sit zazen during their periods, and follow their rhythm. Or you can take the live webcast as reference and sit on your own schedule—sitting when it fits, using the monastery's time blocks as anchors rather than requirements. Optional Zoom meetings with teachers during the week provide a thread of connection: you can ask questions, get guidance, avoid the isolation that sometimes happens in home practice.

This is Soto Zen, which means the emphasis is on shikantaza—just sitting—without the koans and formal dokusan common in Rinzai training. The daily structure at ZMM typically includes zazen periods, kinhin (walking meditation), meals, and work periods. Online, you get the zazen and teaching; you'll handle meals and your own work or rest in your own time.

At $10, this is an accessible way to test whether intensive practice works for you, or to maintain momentum if you're already sitting regularly. The trade-off is real: you won't have the collective silence or the weight of a retreat center, but you also won't have travel time or the cost of lodging.