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.
For absolute beginners and those new to Tahoma we recommend starting with Zazenkai, our community practice that has time for instruction and questions. Chairs and kneeling benches are available as needed.
ZAZENKAI (community practice)
Sundays at 8:00 a.m
Informal Tea at 9:30 a.m.
Those who have practiced with us before are welcome to join us for morning service of sutra chanting (Choka) and zazen (seated meditation) in the mornings. Please contact us if you are interested in attending in the morning.
For those will zazen experience and able to sit through our schedule are welcome to join us for zazen in the evenings. Zazen blocks are fifty minutes divided into two twenty-five minutes periods 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 that can be found on our Schedule and Calendar page; however, non-residents are welcome to drop in anytime for one or more periods. Please see our calendar for when there are structured periods of zazen. Outside of those periods Zazen is unstructured and you are welcome to come on into the Zendo and sit on your own. Please note that we clean the zendo Saturday mornings and it is not open for practice during that time.