| | Hi Michael,
Welcome to the Dho.
First, I have no authorization to teach and I am not offering this, so please consider my comments (if you do) as thoughts from a peer who practices and that your urge to go to sesshin/retreat is a useful in many regards, not least that it should place you in the company of a teacher with an authorization to teach that you can both question and satisfy to your confidence.
So, yes, my first exposure to meditation [edit: training] was zen (soto) from "Little" Suzuki's people. That was a long time ago. I appreciate their teaching a lot.
I think a person can make a case for practices being very different, but from my perspective at this moment, many practices seem very similar. Traditions have their ways of building ethical discipline, equanimity, concentration and insight.
So, I think anapanasati is an excellent tool to add to sitting, and it seems as though you are already doing it. It is like making the breath like the needle and presser foot on a sewing machine: one is sewing their breath to the spot just above the upper lip and just below the nose where air pulls in and releases out. This builds concentration and gives a person a time in the day where all thoughts are just tools to redirect the mind back to sewing itself to the spot of anapanasati.
Pointers: - I would not hesitate to use a chair to get started and maintain a friendly, welcoming attitude with my self and efforts. The knee/leg pain does not need to be confronted (and cross-legged can always be added later). A chair is certainly fine. One can always look at what they are trying to get out of the cross-legged posture and ask if there is some craving in that. Stabilizing the mind on an object (like the breath) is the important aspect: it takes repeated, sustained willingness to trade arising thoughts and feelings for the anapanasati again and again.
- As for mindfulness in the day, this is just as important.
Best wishes |