We hold a number of sesshin that provide full-time opportunities to devote ourselves completely to practice. Sesshin range from one to eight days. If you would like to sign up, contact the coordinator for the event you are interested in, found on the EVENT page of our website.

Sesshin isn’t appropriate for everyone, and we do our best to ensure that each person who joins us is adequately prepared to make the most of what sesshin offers.

Please review the following information if you are interested in attending sesshin.

Sesshin Sign-Up Procedure

1. Heed the deadlines to ease planning.

2. Submit the full fee (check or Zelle), your name, address, phone number, membership category, and e-mail to the coordinator. If you don't use e-mail, send a self-addressed stamped envelope.

3. Let the coordinator know if you have a special medical condition or food allergies pertinent to this sesshin.

4. Let the coordinator know if you are unfamiliar with dokusan or meal procedures.

5. If paying the full sesshin fee poses a problem, talk with the coordinator. A fee reduction may be possible.

6. If you are behind in your membership dues, please send with your deposit/fee.

Sesshin Sign-Up Cautions

Your check will be held for deposit until after sesshin.

Refunds are offered up to two weeks before sesshin starts. In the two week period before sesshin starts, refunds are available if your spot is filled by someone from the waiting list. Once sesshin starts, no refunds will be offered.

Once accepted, the coordinator will contact you with details about the sesshin or let you know if you are on the waiting list.

Bring a sack supper to the work meeting before sesshin begins. Long sesshin work meetings begin at 5 PM. Weekend sesshin work meetings begin at 7 PM.

Plan to arrive early and stay until cleanup is finished after sesshin. Sangha relations are an important part of our practice. If you come from a long distance, please allow ample time before and after sesshin. We ask you to arrive no later than 4 PM to settle in and help prepare the zendo.

Post-sesshin is important, especially when it follows a five or seven day sesshin. Plan extra time to unwind and help close down the zendo. Please do not plan to leave before 4 PM at the earliest.

Sesshin Gear Checklist

• Bag Supper

• Bowl Set

• Sleeping Bag

• Flashlight

• Slip-on Shoes

• Towel and Toilet Articles

• Dark, Solid-Colored Sitting Clothes

• Warm Clothes

• Rain Gear

• Tent {optional)

5-Day and 7-Day Sesshin

Ring of Moss offers five- and seven-day sesshin, the longest full-time, formal practice opportunities each year. Not to be confused with the less formal trail practice of our Mountains and Rivers Sesshin, these are silent, seated events held at the zendo proper. Using forms adapted from traditional Zen monastic life, we suspend all other matters — family, work, communications, etc. — to immerse ourselves totally in Zen training on our cushions and off.

These sesshin are rigorous and spartan in nature. We rise at 4 AM and retire at 9 PM, with short breaks after meals to attend to assigned tasks, rest, bathe, or exercise. Our meals are taken as a group, seated formally. Participants camp on the zendo lawn, sleep on pads on the zendo floor, or stay in one of the two upstairs bunk rooms.

Mountains and Rivers Sesshin

Mountains and Rivers Sesshin are wilderness sesshin, held each spring and summer in partnership with Ring of Bone Zendo in California’s Sierra foothills. We usually go backpacking, but have also experimented with a river-based form. Destinations vary from year to year and season to season, depending on weather, availability of water, trail conditions, etc. We don’t look for difficult circumstances, but they often find us, so it’s vital to prepare physically and to be equipped for inclement weather. For the backpacking trips, it’s a must to break in new boots beforehand and to minimize the weight of personal gear. Plan on carrying ten pounds of group food and supplies, more or less.

We limit M&R sesshin to fifteen people, so sign up early to make sure you get a place. On the day we gather, participants meet by 3 PM at Ring of Bone Zendo (or at an assembly point closer to the trailhead or river put-in spot) to divvy up group food and supplies, eat our sack dinners, do some zazen, and go over the procedures for M&R sesshin.

Sometimes we do backpacking M&R in an “easy wandering” mode, which entails fewer days walking under full packs than our standard trips. If you’re only interested in one of these two modes, before signing up check with the coordinator about which sort of outing it will be. If you aren’t certain whether you’re up to it physically, ask what level of fitness the route will demand.

We take planning for these sesshin very seriously, aiming for places wild, relatively untraveled, and within reasonable driving range of the zendo. Usually we do a low desert, canyon, or coastal route in the spring and a high-elevation site in the summer. We make every effort to scout our routes in advance, so if you could assist in the scouting (or have destination ideas), please contact the coordinator.