The focus at Sanko-an is the practice of shikantaza. We hold very simple and intensive zazen retreats (sesshin) with an exclusive focus on zazen practice, as I learned it from my Dharma teacher, Shohaku Okumura Roshi. This branch of Soto-Zen, also known as the Sanshin-ji style, requires almost no activities such as ceremonies or other formalities and distractions.
Our spiritual practice also focuses on the wholehearted performance of all daily actions with body and mind.
Alongside this, we listen to the universal teachings of the mountains and water, as well as the forest and meadow valleys, and even the great, wide sky.
My Dharma great-grandfather, Master Kodo Sawaki, and Dharma grandfather, Master Kosho Uchiyama, called this practice “adult practice,” or the practice of a truly adult human being.
Especially in these times, with all their advantages and disadvantages, we need a universal practice like zazen, which allows us to sit in the midst of the entire universe and become
one with all things and living beings, in order to profoundly change the course of the world from within.
Zazen is truly being a Buddha, and it is good for absolutely nothing. A silent, immediate revolution that our world needs. One thing is certain: there is something higher and better than the world of our society, which is focused on money, fame, power, and status, and which is increasingly losing touch with the life of a true human being and therefore causing illness and dissatisfaction. The Soto Zen path, on the other hand, heals us and our environment.