In Wisconsin USA, instruction for beginners is offered three times a week at groups in Madison and Baraboo (near Korinji). 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 Events for dates and details.

For more experienced Zen practitioners, Korinji offers six Rinzai Zen 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. See Events for these and many other practice opportunities.

After beginning your Zen practice with us and attending several retreats within 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.

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 Events 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 Korinji 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 Events.

A number of rituals at Korinji are open to the public throughout the year: 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 Events for full details.

We are able to conduct Buddhist ceremonies for various purposes: weddings, funerals or burials (for both persons and beloved pets), memorial services, blessings of a new home or business, and the exorcism of places where disturbing phenomena are experienced. Please inquire.​​

ZenForge is a special weekend retreat at Korinji 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.