If you wish to come sit at Tahoma Zen Monastery for the first time, please contact to the monastery if you require a basic orientation (provided on Sundays before Zazenkai). On the day you intend to participate arrive 10-15 minutes early to give yourself time to find the zendo and settle in to your seat. Please wear loose comfortable dark or plain colored clothing. Chairs and Zazen benches available.
Park at the signed visitor parking near the entrance and walk past the office and kitchen down the road to the Zendo. There are bathrooms in the Zendo lobby. Remove shoes, enter the lobby, then bow at the entrance to the Zendo toward the altar and find a comfortable available seat. There is a sutra book for chanting under your cushion.
Watch this introductory video by Taigen Shodo Harada Roshi on How to Sit Zazen:
And you can contact the monastery for zen and meditation instruction.
Please come regardless of your experience! Sit down and quiet your mind.
WEEKLY ZAZEN SCHEDULE
Tuesday through Saturday
Choka (sutra chanting): 4:50 a.m. – 6:00 a.m.
Morning Zazen: 6:00 a.m. – 7:00 a.m.
Monday through Saturday
Evening Zazen: 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Join us for morning service of sutra chanting (Choka) and zazen (seated meditation) in the mornings and zazen in the evenings. Chairs and kneeling benches are available as needed.
Zazen periods last twenty-five minutes with a short break between periods. Kinhin (walking meditation) follows fifty minutes of zazen. Please be seated in the Zendo ten minutes before zazen begins. If you arrive after a period has started, please wait in the entrance area until the period ends before coming into the Zendo.
Monastery residents follow the schedule outlined above; however, non-residents are welcome to drop in anytime for one or more periods. There is no zazen scheduled for Sunday evening and Monday morning. Zazen is unstructured at this time and there will not be formal sitting, however you are welcome to come on into the Zendo and sit on your own.
ZAZENKAI (community practice)
Good for beginning and continuing students of Zazen.
Sundays at 8:00 a.m
Informal Tea at 9:30 a.m.