It's interesting to see all the opinions here. I recently found a zen (soto zen) dojo in Bucharest, to my great surprise. The last weekend I attended a short "r

It's interesting to see all the opinions here. I recently found a zen (soto zen) dojo in Bucharest, to my great surprise. The last weekend I attended a short "retreat" there. Mostly my experience fits with what I read here. Overall it was fine, and I will continue going there. Probably my biggest problem is that I finally understand and feel the difference between atheism and agnosticism. I am atheist, zen is agnosting. That is, it really doesn't care what religion (if any) you have. In practice this means people will be occasionally talking about "positive energy" and "negative energy". It's mostly small talk though, and the teacher was reasonably... well actually emphatically neutral. As for the regular meetings, they are much cleaner. It's just "hello" and small talk, then you sit, then "good bye" without small talk. I did learn a lot of tips about correct posture and I got a proper pillow, stuff I could not learn on my own. So even if you don't plan to join a dojo, a few visits are probably very useful. Edit: Oh yes, another thing that somewhat irked me. It took me a long time to put my finger on it, but there was too little self deprecating humor in the teacher's talks. Sue me, but this is how I felt.