My most extensive experience living in Buddhist/meditation-centered monasteries is with the San Francisco Zen Center. As many of you probably know, this organization has three main campuses, City Center in Hayes Valley in San Francisco, Green Gulch in Marin County, and Tassajara in the hills of Monterey County. There are various types of retreats available to the public at these centers:
(1) is public meditation retreat (“sesshin” in Japanese) scheduled at Green Gulch or City Center. These go from about five-thirty am to nine pm, mostly seated meditation but also some walking meditation, chanting, work practice, a lecture, and some short breaks. They are from one day to seven days long. The container is tight – you will be held up against your physical, emotional, and spiritual humanity intimately, burning away your impurities. Both centers also have some fairly frequent one-day beginner event’s that start later in the day and end earlier, and are a li’l more chill.
(2) is to sign up as a guest student at Green Gulch or City Center. You can do this any time. You both pay some money and work quite a bit (dishes, gardening, sweeping) but you also get to be a part of the community and sit three periods of meditation a day. Green Gulch is a farm, it’s surrounded by hills trees and birds – many people like that.
Similarly, between April and September, one can go to Tassajara and be a guest worker. Tassajara is a long drive away (four hours) and the Summer work is hard, but the scenery is breathtaking and the monastery is indescribably peaceful.
(3) is to visit Tassajara as a guest during the Summer. It’s like going to a resort – meditation is available but optional, the food is first-class, etc. This option costs lots of money. They have some multi-day programs with specific focuses, like the four noble truths, nature, yoga, etc.
(4) is to commit to live in Tassajara or Green Gulch for seven-to-thirteen weeks during certain times of year for something called a practice-period (“ango” in Japanese). This is the most intense, and has prerequisites. Most people know about them when they are ready to sign up for one.
They also sponsor residential retreats all over Northern California, through their affiliated teachers. Those retreats are held in all sorts of places, from the super-swanky to the pretty rustic, and with all sorts of focuses (breath meditation, loving-kindness, women and POC, yoga or Tai Chi, etc).