Residential Practice at Korinji Monastery
Rather than a less formal Zen center, Korinji monastery will be a sodo: a place for full-time residential training. The foundation of such training is a rigorous daily schedule including zazen (meditation), sanzen (encounters with the teacher), okyo (chanting/ceremony), internal training, samu (physical work), study of the Buddhist teachings, and periods of intensive retreat (sesshin). Training at Korinji will also include practice of related training disciplines described elsewhere in this site.
In such a situation of total immersion and constant contact with teachers and fellow practitioners, all the activities of one's day are more easily done with full concentration, "in one breath". It is a life lived completely in the spirit of the words often found brushed on the han, a wooden sounding board used to signal events in the monastic day:
生死事大 The Question of Birth and Death is great;
無常迅速 How swift is impermanence!
光陰可惜 Every moment is to be cherished.
時不待人 Time waits for no one.
Upon completion of sufficient facilities, short- or long-term residence at Korinji will be open to a small number of persons determined to undertake intensive Buddhist practice. Both men and women, lay or ordained, will be eligible for residential Zen training.
As Korinji is constructed, more information on residential training opportunities at Korinji will be released. If you are considering making this type of committment in your life and wish to speak with us or give your thoughts, please contact Korinji.
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