True Refuge Week: Self-Directed Intensive Practice for MRO Students

Self-directed within structure

This retreat inverts the traditional sesshin model. You get the anchor—morning zazen and liturgy, the rhythm of a practice community—but the afternoon is yours to shape. That's useful if you're a training student working on specific work: deepening a koan, translating a sutra, exploring how art meets practice. It's also honest about what intensive practice actually needs: some people sit better with a rigid schedule; others need autonomy to follow what's alive in their practice on a given day.

Mountains and Rivers Order

MRO is a contemporary Sanbo Zen lineage in the Harada-Yasutani tradition, brought to the West by John Daido Loori. If you're in this order, you know what that means—rigorous zazen, koan work, and an expectation that practice moves off the cushion into daily life and creative work. This retreat assumes that baseline.

The format

Nine people only. That's intentional—small enough that you can actually have meaningful dialogue with other practitioners, not so small that the morning schedule feels thin. Mornings are structured; afternoons give you options: more sitting, sutra study (likely connected to your training work), art practice, or conversation. Meals are likely together; noble silence probably covers formal practice times and common areas.

This is not a beginners' retreat and not a drop-in event. It's calibrated for people already in relationship with this lineage and its teachers.