1. Be in your seat 5 minutes before zazen begins.
2. If late, please sit in the couch area until the next kinhin begins.
3. Avoid wearing strong scents, distracting clothing, or clothes that will make distracting
noises during kinhin. Typically pants/skirts that cover the knees when sitting, dull
colors, and clothes without crude or distracting or emotionally triggering emblems are
appropriate.
4. Leave water bottles and any other personal items in the shoe rack area.
5. Bow to the altar when entering and exiting the zendo.
6. When exiting the zendo and if others are behind you, bow as you continue walking out
of the zendo without turning to bow to the altar.
7. When walking in the zendo, and in the abbey in general, walk with hands in shasshu
(hands clasped over the solar plexus).
8. When approaching your seat, place your zafu (cushion) where you want it on the
zabutan (large mat), stand and bow to your mat, turn so that your chest turns toward
the altar, bow to the person or zabutan across from you, and step back and sit.
9. Before a period of zazen begins: if you are directly to the side or directly across from a
person who is bowing to their zabutan or bowing to the zabutan across from them, bow
at the same time with them.
10. If you need a chair or other sitting apparatus, ask priests and senior students for
assistance. You may change your apparatus before zazen or during kinhin if needed.
11. Sit still. If you must move, move quickly and with intention, and find another position of
stillness. Try to find a position that you can hold for an entire period of zazen.
12. Sneeze into your elbow. Wipe your nose into a tissue if necessary; do not blow your
nose or sniff repeatedly in the zendo. Crying is absolutely okay; if it becomes
uncontrollable and loud, please exit the zendo and find some space for yourself.
13. Kinhin begins with 2-3 minutes of slow walking meditation. After the walking becomes
quicker, you may exit the zendo for a bathroom, stretching, or water break. Once you
have finished taking care of your needs, continue with kinhin. Enter back in the line
where you were, between the same people, or where those people would be.
14. At the end of the periods of zazen, fluff your zafu and wipe you zabutan before exiting.
