ZMM Residency Photo Album – Zen Mountain Monastery

We do our best to provide applicants with a sense of what residency is like, but even with this information, it’s safe to say that your image of what residential Zen training is like will not match the actual experience. In some ways, residency will exceed your expectations, providing you with a transformative experience that continues to unfold in deep and subtle ways long after you leave. In other ways, life here can be very ordinary, and learning to let the mind settle down in zazen takes time and discipline.

Please take advantage of the information provided here on our website, read through all the sections on the One-Month Residency, or Year-Long Intensive, and listen to some of the teachings, so that you get as clear a sense as possible about what you are stepping into.

Click images to see larger photos.

: Meal crew is a daily part of the schedule.

: A resident serving as usher straightens the zendo after service.

: Many resident stay in cabins, a short walk up the hill from the Monastery’s main building.

: Art practice is a part of the schedule during spring and fall training intensives.

: Body practice is a regular part of the schedule during spring and fall training intensives.

: Working in the garden during caretaking practice.

: Gokan, one of the senior monastics, working in the orchard.

: Eating lunch in the dining hall.

: The altar attendant working in the zendo.

: Working in the orchard during work practice.

: Long-term residents may serve in office work positions like registrar, data-entry, or graphics.

: A senior student engages Shugen Roshi in dharma encounter following a meditation intensive.

: The Monastery’s library in the Sangha House.

: Sharing a meal together.

: Housekeeping is a common caretaking work assignment.

: The shower room in the Monastery’s Sangha House.

: Shugen Roshi offering a teaching in the Sangha House during a retreat.

: Serving as the altar flower person.

: Monastic Zuiko trains a resident in his service position.

: Rudy is a long-term Monastery resident.

: Liturgical instruments hanging in the Monastery’s zendo hallway.

How to Apply

Please read through all of the information about the One-Month Residency, or Year-Long Intensive, and then contact the Training Office at (845) 688-2228 or zmmtrain@mro.org to ask questions about residency or to request a residency brochure and application. You’ll be asked to examine your motivation for engaging spiritual practice and to express this motivation in writing and in a phone interview.