Sesshin at Sanshin

Sesshin at Sanshin is an opportunity to practice zazen without distraction.  It's one of the core activities for us in this dharma family, and we pay a lot of attention to it.  We set aside the usual activities -- or entertainments -- of temple life, like work periods, meetings with teachers and dharma talks, and focus completely on zazen.  We practice in complete silence following a 4 am to 9 pm daily schedule that consists simply of fourteen 50-minute periods of zazen with one-hour periods for oryoki meals and a bit of personal time.  This sesshin-without-toys style of practice was created by our founder's teacher, Kosho Uchiyama Roshi, and practiced at Antaiji in Kyoto, Japan.  We carry on and offer this tradition of our lineage here at Sanshin.  We look forward to practicing together!

Fundamental context for Sanshin style sesshin

Sanshin style sesshin is likely to be different from the sesshin and retreats you may have participated in at other dharma centers, both in activities and approach.  Because it's important to have some understanding of the sesshin practice into which you're stepping, we recommend that you have some prior experience of intensive practice, and that you read several things before participating in sesshin here: 
Before you decide to attend sesshin: Consider your Health & motivations
Sanshin's style of sesshin is one of the most intensive available.  While everyone is welcome to participate, the reality is that this activity is not right for everyone at all times.  Attendees should be generally healthy in body and mind in order to have a meaningful sesshin experience.  A certain amount of physical and emotional discomfort goes with the territory, and you need to be prepared for it.  We can't make sesshin OK for you; there's no set of techniques that will remove your challenges and make you comfortable.  The point of sesshin is not to blunt the edges of this one unified reality but to sit in the middle of them and fully enter into what's happening.  If that feels like a threat to your wellbeing, that's an indication that this might not be the activity for you right now.

You might think that if you're someone who welcomes a challenge and always seeks to be doing the most difficult practice around, sesshin at Sanshin is a great fit -- but maybe not.  Sesshin is not a tool for enhancing your ego.  Attending and completing sesshin is not an achievement.  The very ego that drives you to prove yourself by coming to sesshin is the ego that gets in the way of actually doing the practice.  If you're relying on your self-concept to get you to and through sesshin, it would be good to rethink your approach and review the section of the Sanshin stylebook related to non-reliance.

Sometimes folks build up a significant amount of anxiety related to sesshin, and it may affect their wellbeing at all levels.  If you're experiencing such a thing, again, this might not be the activity for you right now.  No one is required to sit sesshin. 

Neither is sesshin a place to work out and resolve your emotional issues or to come to a decision about what to do next if you're at a turning point in your life.  If you're spending every zazen period analyzing yourself or your options, you're not sitting zazen.  If you're not sitting zazen, there's not much point to attending sesshin, because all we do there is eat, sleep and sit.

Before making the decision to participate, it's important to ask yourself some questions, and answer yourself honestly.
  • Why do I want to do this now?  Attending sesshin can be a reasonable next step in exploring the dharma and deepening practice, but if you're in it to prove something or resolve something, it's time to reconsider.
  • Will my physical health be adversely affected?  Sesshin can be painful for the fittest of human bodies.  If you have back or joint issues, digestive or dietary conditions, problems sleeping, etc. that may be exacerbated by eating, sleeping and sitting during sesshin, consider carefully whether you really want to take this on.
  • Will my mental health be adversely affected?  If you're under the care of a therapist or other mental health professional, discuss whether a sesshin like this is contraindicated for you before you decide to register.  If not but you have emotional or mental health concerns, be candid with yourself about whether you're prepared to sit calmly with whatever may arise, and to do so for 14 hours a day, day after day.  While we're here to help with practice questions, we are not therapists who can respond to mental health crises.

If after talking things over with yourself you've realized that now is not the time for sesshin at Sanshin, there are other options available to you for deepening your practice and perhaps continuing to prepare for an eventual sesshin here.  Ideas include:
  • Registering for one day of the sesshin, rather than the full event.  If that one day goes well, you can attend more of the next sesshin.
  • Participating virtually from home.
  • Attending sesshin with a sangha whose style is less intensive and who may have support resources available.
  • Working with health care professionals to resolve issues of body and mind before deciding to attend sesshin.

Sanshin is concerned for everyone's wellbeing during sesshin, and relies on participants to make mature decisions about their attendance.  While we recognize that unpredictable things happen during sesshin, heading off crises and early departures makes the sesshin go more smoothly for everyone.

Food practice during sesshin

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Oryoki meals: During sesshin at Sanshin, we carry out meals in the zendo using oryoki.  We sit at low tables and follow the procedures used at Antaiji.  This video introduces the steps of the meal (though some details have changed since it was recorded), and this one shows the use of the oryoki set for breakfast.  There are various other oryoki-related resources available online, which you can find and study on your own.

​After the welcome meeting on the opening afternoon of sesshin, we take some time to (re)orient ourselves to oryoki practice at Sanshin, moving through the steps of formal meals together, with opportunities for discussing details and refinements before the complete silence of sesshin.  If you have your own oryoki set you're welcome to bring it, but we have plenty of (lay) sets for use by participants during the sesshin.
How we source food for sesshin at Sanshin
We are participating in the local food & farming community.

During sesshin at Sanshin, we simply sit, sleep, and eat. Quietly living out this schedule together for three, five, or seven days at a time, we embody in a very concentrated way a central question in our practice: how do we live without causing each other suffering? 

Cooking and eating can be a deep study of community. This becomes especially apparent when these are our only waking activities besides sitting, as during sesshin. In this context, we can’t help but notice that in order to live, we all need, as Rev. Tatsuzen Sato writes for Sotoshu, “to put other forms of life such as those of animals and plants into our mouth.” Less obvious is that underpinning this dynamic is the interaction of countless beings in the growth, harvest, and transport of living food. Our food practice, like zazen, teaches and embodies interconnection. Eating fresh vegetables grown in nearby soil during sesshin can be a simple and direct reminder for us.

Relating to the local community and environment through the basic necessity for food has been a given in sanghas across the world through most of Buddhist history. In our modern context of supermarkets, industrial-scale agriculture, and widespread environmental degradation, it takes some intention to participate in this long tradition, and to do our best to avoid some of the harms to nonhuman and human beings inherent in much of our contemporary global food system. 

Recognizing the opportunity, particularly in sesshin practice, for wholesome participation in the life of all beings, we aim to source a substantial portion of food for our practice activities from nearby small farms, gardens, and people that work to produce and provide food sustainably -- and to grow what we can as a sangha ourselves. Coordination efforts in this direction are built into the job description of Sanshin’s operations manager.
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Prepping the soil for Sanshin's "sesshin garden" at a Bloomington Community Garden plot. March, 2024
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Picking up sesshin produce at Stranger's Hill Organics in Bloomington. September, 2023

More sesshin context & helpful information

sesshin logistics
Sesshin logistics:
  • In the interest of maintaining a settled and focused practice container for everyone, please do not wear brightly colored or wordy clothing, flashy or jangly jewelry, or strongly scented products in the zendo.
  • Wake-up is at 3:40 am.  There is no wake-up bell; please set an alarm for yourself.  If you get up early, please be respectful of others who may still be sleeping.
  • Zazen begins at 4:10 am; please be seated by 4:00 wearing your rakusu or okesa if you have one, in time for Hoko’s bows and zendo rounds at 4:05.  She should be the last one into the zendo, so if you are late and she has already arrived, please wait until the next kinhin period to enter the zendo and take your place.
  • Everyone will have a work assignment on one or more days of the sesshin.  You may be asked to help prepare meals in the kitchen, set up tables, serve food into participants' bowls, wash dishes, ring bells in the zendo, or other things.  Work assignments will be posted on the board in the entryway; please be sure you know what you’re assigned to do and show up to do it.  Work is itself practice and not an interruption of your sesshin.
  • If you’re camping or staying in the zendo and using the shower there, you can leave things in the baskets above the toilet. Showers are taken during the personal time following meals and at no other time because of noise considerations; bathroom noise carries right down the hall into the zendo.
  • Public spaces need to remain public spaces for the use of all participants, so please refrain from napping on sofas, leaving dishes or belongings about, or otherwise claiming sangha space as your own.
  • On Sunday morning the public will arrive for the 9 am zazen period and the dharma talk which follows.  By then we will already have broken silence and attended to cleanup and a closing chat.
Your role in sesshin
One of the things we hear from sesshin participants most frequently is that their practice here is only made possible by the efforts and contributions of the entire group.  Your presence is important to everyone, and we plan on your attendance at all sesshin activities.  If you aren’t around to carry out your work assignment, someone will need to cover for you.  If you skip meals, we will have bought and prepared too much food.  We realize that it may be necessary to take unscheduled breaks in order to take care of yourself, but please inform a practice leader as soon as possible if you will be taking significant time out, unable to do your work or missing meals.

Leaving early on the last day is strongly discouraged as it has a significant adverse effect on the sesshin community.  It’s important for the group as a whole that participants stay together and finish strong because having the energy and spirit of fellow practitioners is a vital support to everyone’s practice.  Please do everything you can to be here for the full duration of your planned stay.  If your flight, train or bus departure would require you to leave on the last day before the official close of the sesshin, consider staying for another night, getting some good rest and leaving for home the next day.  We recognize that health issues, family emergencies, bad weather, etc. do come up, but your decision to leave early affects more people than just you yourself.  Ask for help if you’re struggling rather than casually throwing in the towel.  The sesshin peters out with a whimper when participants trickle quietly away before cleanup and close—not to mention that all of the work period tasks fall to the few who remain.

Overall, it's important to remember that without participants there is no sesshin.  It's not like a performance put on by one group of people for another, in which things can carry on whether or not the audience decides to duck out before the last act.  No matter whether you're experienced or a beginner, from Bloomington or from out of town, if you're suddenly not here there's a gap in the practice that affects everyone.
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Health considerations
  • Please carefully consider your physical condition and mental health before registering for sesshin at Sanshin.  This style of sesshin is demanding, and occasionally first-timers bail out before the end.  While that's better than injuring yourself, it does mean that suddenly someone else will have to be found to do your work assignments and that we've bought and prepared too much food.  If you're concerned about your ability to complete the entire sesshin because of joint issues, chronic back pain, recent surgery, mental health, or other things, consider signing up for only the first few days.  If that goes well, next time you can participate in the entire sesshin. You may also participate virtually from home. 
  • If you would be arriving with a communicable illness, please withdraw from the sesshin.  Colds and flu spread rapidly through a community practicing at close quarters with a demanding schedule.  In kindness to all participants, including aging teachers, please don’t bring an illness into the group even if you yourself feel well enough to participate.  No one wants to come down with something in the midst of sesshin and miss his or her opportunity to practice.  
  • While you're here, handwashing and cough-covering protocols are vital to maintaining everyone’s health.  Please manage your used tissues and generally do what you can to keep your germs to yourself.  Because practitioners are arriving from all over the world, we’re exposing each other to new bugs with every event.  See our public health protocols here, which may limit, but do not eliminate, the risk of contracting an illness while practicing at Sanshin. 
  • Take care of your body as the ground of your practice.  If you’re taking any kind of medication for body or mind, this is not the time to stop.  Use extra cushions for support during zazen or move to a bench or chair as necessary.  Drink enough water and get as much sleep as you can under the circumstances.  If you’re staying on the Sanshin campus, that’s about 6 hours a night.  If you commute, it’s less.  If you’re driving back and forth to sesshin every day, please watch your fatigue level and don’t put yourself in a position to fall asleep at the wheel.  For your own safety, if you need to leave just before the last zazen period of the day in order to get additional sleep, do it.
  • Watch your mindstate and tell a practice leader immediately if you feel yourself becoming confused or disoriented.  It’s uncommon, but intensive, prolonged zazen or any intensive sitting practice can lead to letting go of the self in a way that allows for us to lose our bearings to a greater or lesser degree.  Most of the time this is fine, we know what’s going on, and we can just observe.  However, if you’re concerned at all with what’s happening, don’t tell yourself you just need to sit through it or that it’s just your mind wandering.  Please find someone and we’ll talk about it.​
For travelers
For those traveling to Sanshin from out of town, note that Sanshin can provide neither guest rooms nor transportation to and from the temple each day. You may sleep in the zendo with your own bedding or camp in the yard with your own gear if you wish. See our zendo stay and camping guidelines here. Some may prefer to rent a nearby hotel room or other temporary housing.
Virtual participation
A virtual look-in option is available during the sesshin.  Simply go to our virtual practice page and click on the green button.  No registration or fee payment is required, though gifts of financial support are welcome and appreciated.  Please go to this page to make your donation rather than using the registration buttons.

​Please note that virtual participation begins with the first zazen period on the opening evening -- the opening welcome meeting listed on the schedule simply covers logistical considerations relevant to those practicing at Sanshinji in-person.
Other things to know
  • Please learn the zendo forms and carry them out fully and completely as an important part of your practice.  They are not optional exotic decoration.  They communicate intentions and build community.  If you’re the last one on your feet after a zazen period, don’t skip steps—finish the process of taking care of your place, gassho and bow to your seat.  No one is timing you and no one is grumbling about the few additional seconds it takes to practice thoroughly.  If you think everyone is watching and waiting, consider what you’d rather have people see:  you cutting corners and hurrying haphazardly along, or you completely doing your function.  Entering the zendo, arriving at your seat, getting up from zazen—gassho and bow every time.  During meals, pay attention to what those around you are doing so that you’re prepared to respond to them as appropriate.
  • We do only four things in zazen: keep the posture, breathe deeply through the nose, keep the eyes open and let go of thought.  We do nothing else.  This is shikantaza, or just sitting.
  • Try not to move around and make noise during zazen.  If you must change your position during zazen, make a small bow in gassho to thank your neighbors for their understanding, and then move quietly.  There is no need to bow after you’ve finished your adjustment.
  • When getting up from zazen, take care if your feet have gone to sleep.  Move slowly and carefully and avoid putting weight on numb legs or feet that might result in breaks or falls.  It’s happened to everyone at some time; we’ll wait while you stand up safely.
  • Kinhin is not break time.  It’s just another zazen period.  If you really need to leave the zendo to attend to something in particular, it’s fine to do so.  If you realize that you’re leaving in search of something more interesting, it’s better to stay.
  • Reading and writing during personal time are discouraged.  Although study is an important practice, we put it aside during sesshin.  As Okumura Roshi says, “In our zazen we have to let go of any kind of thinking, even thinking about dharma.”  It goes without saying that engaging with devices during sesshin is also not optimal.   If you’re looking for something to do during personal time, consider taking a walk, doing yard cleanup, mending or cleaning your belongings or undertaking other non-intellectual activities.
  • Please observe complete silence during sesshin. If you need something or have a question after sesshin has begun, please write a note to a practice leader or take that conversation away from other practitioners.  Do get help if and when you need it—just keep talking and discursive thinking to a minimum.  For your own sake and the sake of others, stay silent and stay focused.  Chatting and small talk can happen after sesshin.  ​
After the sesshin
  • After almost every event we find participants’ abandoned shoes, clothing, toiletries, camping gear or other things.  Several times a year we have to make a run to the charity shop with a load of this stuff because we just don’t have the space to let it pile up.  Before you leave for home, check all the places you’ve been: shoe shelves, zendo, cubbies, changing room, bathrooms, common room, picnic tables.  Please don’t leave your stuff here, because unless you realize quickly and contact us it’s likely to be given away.
  • Likewise, check what you’re taking home to be sure it’s actually yours.  Many robes, samu-e, pants, shoes and other items look similar; make sure you’re not leaving with someone else’s prized belongings.
  • When you leave Sanshin, take care with your reentry.  After spending days in shikantaza with barriers down, you may feel vulnerable or emotional.  Plunging right back into the world of chatter, devices and friends and family can be jarring.  If you’re headed to an airport, you may find the bright lights, loud monitors and strident advertising somewhat painful.  The airport chapel is a safe and quiet alternative to the main seating areas.

Upcoming sesshin

​Registration is usually open for one sesshin at a time (see below). Keep scrolling for further context on each sesshin.
  • Rohatsu sesshin (November 30 - December 8, 2024) 
  • 3-day Uchiyama Roshi memorial sesshin (Mar 6 - 9, 2025)
  • 5-day sesshin (June 3 - 8, 2025)
  • 3-day sesshin (September 4 - 7, 2025)

Rohatsu sesshin
November 30 - December 8, 2024
​(registration closed)

Rohatsu sesshin is carried out each year across the Buddhist world in recognition of Shakyamuni's awakening under the bodhi tree.  Rohatsu is one of the sanbukki, the Three Buddha Days, marking the important events in Shakyamuni's life -- his birth, awakening, and death.  Rohatsu sesshin is the longest sesshin we do at Sanshin, and on the final night we sit until midnight and then hold a brief chanting service.
Rohatsu sesshin Daily schedule
Please note that virtual participation begins with the first zazen period on the opening evening.
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Saturday, Nov 30
3:00 pm - Welcome meeting & oryoki orientation
5:10 - Opening comments and zazen
​6:00 - Dinner
7:10 - Zazen
8:00 - Kinhin
8:10 - Zazen
​9:00 - End of day
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Saturday, Dec 7
Same as Dec 1 - 6 except:
9:00 pm - Silent tea
9:20 - Zazen
10:00 - Kinhin
10:10 - Zazen
11:00 - Kinhin
11:10 - Zazen
12:00 am - Heart Sutra service

Sunday, Dec 8
07:00 - Cleanup
07:30 - Potluck breakfast w/ sangha
08:30 - Sunday setup & break
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Participants are welcome and encouraged to join our regular public Sunday practice, which in this case includes our annual Rohatsu ceremony marking Shakyamuni Buddha's awakening, immediately following sesshin:

9:10 - Zazen with sangha
10:00 - Break
10:10 - Dharma talk by Okumura Roshi
~11:00 - Rohatsu ceremony
Sun, Dec 1 - Fri, Dec 6
04:00 am - Participants are in their seats
​04:05 - Doshi entrance
4:10 - Zazen
​05:00 - Kinhin
05:10 - Zazen
06:00 - Breakfast
07:10 - Zazen
08:00 - Kinhin
08:10 - Zazen
09:00 - Kinhin
09:10 - Zazen
10:00 - Kinhin
10:10 - Zazen
11:00 - Kinhin
11:10 - Zazen
12:00 pm - Lunch
01:10 - Zazen
02:00 - Kinhin
02:10 - Zazen
03:00 - Kinhin
03:10 - Zazen
04:00 - Kinhin
04:10 - Zazen
05:00 - Kinhin
05:10 - Zazen
06:00 - Dinner
07:10 - Zazen
08:00 - Kinhin
8:10 - Zazen
9:00 - ​End of day

​Looking ahead (registration not yet open):

3-day Uchiyama Roshi Memorial sesshin
March 6 - 9, 2025

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We dedicate our March sesshin to the memory of Kosho Uchiyama Roshi, the teacher of our founder, Shohaku Okumura and author of the foundational book Opening the Hand of Thought.  As he is one of the main shapers of Sanshin style, we can't help but be grateful for his life and practice.  He died on March 13, 1998.  We will hold a brief memorial service following the usual Sunday morning zazen and dharma talk, given by Okumura Roshi himself.

5-day June sesshin
June 3 - 8, 2025

The five-day June sesshin is part of our annual three-month practice period, or ango.  During the ango, a shuso, or head novice, serves as an apprentice teacher in order to develop leadership skills as Soto Zen clergy.  While Hoko will lead the sesshin, the shuso will also serve as a model of practice in the zendo for the community. Learn more about our 2024 ango here.

3-day September sesshin
Sep 4 - 7, 2025

We will sit together for three days, carrying out our usual steady Sanshin-style sesshin practice.
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