Half-Day Sitting
Each month of the year, BZC hosts a meditation intensive
(a Half-Day Sitting, Sesshin, or a Weekend Sitting.)
Upcoming Half-Day Sitting events in 2025:
August 3 (Mountain Zendo)
November 9 (City Zendo)
A Half-Day Sitting is the shortest meditation intensive we offer. It is appropriate for new practitioners who are trying out extended sitting, or experienced practitioners.
We will sit 4 periods of zazen, with walking meditation in-between, followed by a short Zen service. An optional oryoki lunch is offered for in-person participants.
Schedule
7:45 Oryoki Instruction (optional)
9:00 Zazen (sitting meditation)
9:40 Kinhin (walking meditation)
9:50 Zazen
10:30 Kinhin
10:40 Zazen
11:20 Kinhin
11:30 Zazen
12:00 Service (bowing & chanting)
12:10 End of Service
12:30 Oryoki lunch (optional)
In-person participants should plan to stay for all 4 periods of zazen and the service. Online participants may join in all or part of the schedule.
Zenki Roshi will offer dokusan throughout the morning for both in-person and online participants. Dokusan is a traditional private student-teacher meeting.
Information about Oryoki
Oryoki is a traditional Zen practice of using meals as an opportunity to extend mindfulness practice—or as Zenki Roshi might say: bodyfulness practice—into ordinary daily activity. It is a beautiful ritual of serving and receiving, of mindful and healthy eating, and of cooking and cleaning up.
Oryoki meals are an integral part of BZC’s Sesshin and Weekend Sitting Intensives. Since the Half-Day Sittings often serve as a springboard for practitioners who are interested in longer intensives, we have decided to offer oryoki as a more regular practice opportunity.
For those who are new to oryoki practice or need to refresh their knowledge of the forms, instruction will be offered upon request.
