Korinji offers instruction for beginners three times a week at groups in nearby Madison and Baraboo, Wisconsin. These are ideal places for you to learn to meditate, meet our teacher and community, and come away with tools you need to start a daily practice at home. Not near Korinji? We have other groups worldwide! Please see the Meditation Groups page.

If you are new to meditation, please also consider joining us for our annual weekend-long beginner's retreat at Korinji: the Zen Life Retreat. You will learn to meditate, have a taste of monastery life, and receive direct guidance from our teacher. Zen Life Retreats are appropriate for adults and mature teens. See the Calendar for dates and details.

For more experienced Zen practitioners, Korinji offers six Dai-Sesshin — 7 day intensive meditation retreats — each year at the monastery, plus two additional sesshin annually in Europe. Our sesshin are conducted in a rigorous, traditional manner uncommon in the West: these retreats are remarkable in their depth and power to transform. Explore our Calendar for these and many other Zen events.

After beginning your Zen practice with us and attending several retreats with our community, you may apply to become a formal student of our teacher, Meido Roshi. A short, face-to-face ceremony called shoken formalizes this, and opens the door to more intensive instruction. Shoken is conducted at Dai-Sesshin throughout the year in N. America and Europe. Please inquire.

Mine-gyo, traditional Shugendo Mountain Training, is conducted annually in natural areas near Korinji. These three-day retreats are centered around the Jukkai Shugyo, "Ten Realms Training": a bodily entry into levels of awakening using the natural environment as the mandala. Among rocks, trees, and waterfalls, our Shugendo students come to recognize their own strength and wisdom. See the calendar for this and other upcoming Shugendo events.

The Korinji Center for the Contemplative Arts offers training for students to cultivate and express meditative wisdom through various media.  Sado (tea ceremony), calligraphy, ceramics, and bladesmithing are among the arts practiced at our monastery. See the calendar for upcoming classes and art-focused retreats.

Throughout the year, opportunities to explore the bodily intersection of Zen and bujutsu (martial arts) are provided at the monastery and elsewhere. We also conduct an annual retreat with this focus. Beginners and experienced martial artists are welcome to explore ways in which warrior skills and mindset open to us a path of self-refinement and compassion.  Please see the calendar.

At least once each month, public goma — a mikkyo fire ritual during which prayers are made for many persons and purposes — is conducted at Korinji, and you are welcome to attend. During goma you may also submit (in person or by email) prayers to be written on the wooden boards burned in the fire. Full details may be found in the Calendar listings. Suggested donation to support the monastery: $5 for each prayer board.

Following goma, a very special mikkyo ceremony called Nyoi Hoju Ichi-in Kaji-Ho is conducted in Korinji's main hall for our visitors. This is the "wish-fulfilling jewel single-seal blessing," an important esoteric ritual handed down in the Shingon tradition. Its purposes: to heal, to create conditons for good fortune and relationshps with others, and to remove obstacles in one's life. During the ritual, participants are touched upon the shoulders, back, and crown with an empowered crystal. 

A number of ceremonies throughout the year at the monastery are open to the public: special days commemorating the birth, enlightenment, and death of the Buddha, Urabon (when we remember and pray for the well-being of our ancestors and family who have passed on), events at the New Year, and more. Please see the Calendar listing of each for full details.

Meido Roshi and other ordained persons in our community are also able to conduct Buddhist ceremonies for various purposes: weddings, funerals or burials (for both persons and beloved pets), memorial services, and the exorcism or blessing of buildings. Please inquire.​​

ZenForge is a special weekend retreat focusing on a particular art: bladesmithing. Over the course of a weekend, a small number or students are intensively trained to hand-forge a knife. Doing so, they come to understand how elements of earth, water, fire, air, and space - unified with concentration cultivated in meditation - give birth to a transcendent craft. See the calendar for upcoming ZenForge weekends.