One Continuous Thread: Home Practice Intensive—May

This retreat bridges the gap between formal sesshin and daily life. If you sit regularly but can't take a week off for residential practice, ZMM's home intensive lets you participate in the structure and support of a real retreat without leaving home.

The format gives you two paths: you can wake with the sesshin, join the live webcast of the full schedule (zazen periods, kinhin, meals), and move through the week synchronized with the residential participants at the monastery. Or you can set your own sitting times and still access the opening guidelines and optional teacher meetings. Either way, you're practicing within a held container—the retreat dates are fixed, the schedule exists, other people are sitting with you across the web.

Soto Zen sesshin emphasizes steady sitting without a goal. Daily practice becomes continuous practice; the title "One Continuous Thread" points to that quality. Opening guidelines will frame the week's focus; teacher meetings offer the chance for one-on-one guidance if you want it.

What this isn't: a livestreamed lecture or a structured online course. It's a real sesshin adapted for people sitting at home. You'll need a quiet space, a zafu or bench, and the self-direction to actually sit—there's no peer pressure, no schedule posted on the zendo wall. For some people, that freedom is essential. For others, it's too easy to skip the afternoon sit when your bed is ten feet away. Know yourself.