Nothing to Write About

That last entry was a complete throwaway, it occurred to me to write out a sesshin blurb in that format, so I did, but my heart wasn't in it. The problem is I'm not sure how to write about what actually happened, or if I should, or if I want to share it with everyone. I'm not trying to be coy (well maybe a little) it's just a hard experience to sort out, the crucible of sesshin can have a dramatic effect on people, even experienced sitters.

The Language Thing

One of the hardest and most compelling parts of sesshin for me is the restrictions on reading and writing. Speech I don't have a problem with, but not being able to read and write was initially terrifying. I work in a world of words and conceptual constructions, formal and informal grammars, ontological structures, inheritance hierarchies, complex networks, directed graphs of nodes. For fun I mostly read, voraciously, online and off. It's not a recognized condition but it's probably fair to say I'm on the hyperlexic side of the curve.

Over the course of the last year or so as I've sat through more than twenty full days of meditation the experience has been varied, but as each new experience has come up I've learned to recognize it and label it and let go. In the classic texts there are 10,000 things that come up durning meditation and the practice is to meet those things, recognize them for what they are and let go of them. Just sit there and process what comes up, be still and simply endure your own inner chaos and learn what it is that drives you to distraction.

It's a slow process, picking apart the sensations, perceptions and conscious formations that arise in our minds and figuring out how not to become attached to them. Thus we relieve all suffering one moment at a time, sitting there on the cushion, soaking it in for a little while. Each new sit has brought me a new piece of knowledge about myself, a way to stop for a moment and recognize particular formation for what it is: delusion. So when I realized that I spend most of my time in mediation, and in life, thinking about what to say, well, it might not sound like much but it made a big difference.

Being Time

I haven't started in on the original writings of Dogen just yet, but there is one phrase that has stuck in my mind since I first heard it: "the mind moves from the present to the past". That is, even though we understand time to be a linear phenomenon, with the clock ticking inexorably forward away from the past and into the future, our experience of it is distinctly non-linear. We visit the past every time we remember a pleasant memory or a regret or a loss, and we travel into the future every time we compose, practice and rehearse what we are going to say or write to someone.

Sitting there, one day it came to me, I'm almost always in the past or the future. Either swimming in an ocean of regret and loss or hanging from a cliff of anxiety, fearful of falling into the uncertain future, grasping at the vines. So I had my moment, my sudden realization that I'd been sitting here out of time most of my life. Living in my own forest of delusion about what may have happened and what might happen. That's when it finally got quiet, the monkey sat down in my lap, right there in my cupped hands, curled up a went to sleep.

Nothing to Say

It's what happened next that I'm not sure what to say about, or if there is anything to say about it. Because what it is required the suspension of language, and how can you describe an experience that is inherently outside of the bounds of language? This is the fundamental koan of Zen, how do you show what cannot be described in words? Many have tried, but the answers tend to frustrate beginners:

"How do you think of not thinking? Think of non-thinking."

"The way that can be told is not the true way."

"The path is the goal."

There are moments that I could describe, but they're just memories, just the worlds I use to remind myself about a past that has already dissolved into emptiness. And there are things I might want to say about the future which doesn't exist outside of my own prognostication. The past and future are products of the persistent delusion we all carry around with us, that we are separate from the rest of the universe, that what we think and experience in day to day life is reality. The truth is far more profound than words can describe and it's highly resistant to being recorded or explained, you have to go looking for it yourself, and you can't stop looking until you find it.

Mission Accomplished?

Going back to the beginning of this blog, a little more than a year ago, I laid out my goals for practice:

"What I hope to learn [is] how to be in the moment with myself and the world. How to let go of my delusions and see clearly, how to step away from my habits and into a spontaneous life."

Even at the time I knew that these gaining ideas weren't quite in line with the teachings, but sometimes you have to go with the best you have. Having a specific goal in practice misses the point of exploring yourself and looking for the present moment. Believing for a second that anything has or can be accomplished in seating meditation is a trap, we don't improve by sitting, we create space in the rest of our lives so that we can improve ourself. It's a subtle distinction but critical to keeping close to the way, which is what is required to actualize the enlightenment that can be touched in Zazen.

Practice, therefore, is just that: practice. The real work of becoming a Buddha—something I never intended to pursue—happens outside of the Zendo, away from the cushion. Practice prepares the ground of awakening, but the seed is already beneath the soil, richly fertilized with our karma and delusions, ready to come up through the ground and grow if we can just let the light in and make room in the garden of our minds.

"Dirt farming and cloud farming, it's all the same."

Four Truths of Sesshin

One: All of Sesshin is Suffering

From forgetting my Oryoki bowls, to being late to take the refuges, to wake up bell, into hours and hours of sitting, through twenty services and oryoki meals, hundreds of prostrations, soji, dishes… Following the schedule completely is suffering, anyone who tells you differently is selling something.

Medicine Bowl might be the worst, though.

Two: There is a cause for Sesshin

We chant about it in morning service: all my ancient twisted karma; born from beginning-less greed, hate and delusion. Sitting is first and for most an exercise is not generating karma. What karma can accumulate when speech, movement and even thoughts are restrained?

Sesshin is the process of cutting the Gordian knot that we create in our lives, through our actions, speech and thoughts. Just sitting there the past and the future unwind into the present moment, past misdeeds are confronted and desires for the future examined in detail. Sitting puts our karmic life under the microscope and asks us to look at it, to classify it and understand the roots of our suffering.

Three: There is an end of Sesshin

The schedule loops day after day, it becomes a steady rhythm and you move from place to place, ceremony to ceremony, sit to kinhin, back to the cushion, setup for talk, eat lunch, take a break, afternoon sitting, service… The clock ticks through every moment of the week, keeping an eye on the schedules posted around is pretty much mandatory. It's also the only reading you get to do. Savor it.

Six full days of living in a darkened room, staring at a blank wall. But then, on the seventh day, it ends. You have breakfast, a closing talk, lunch and then the sesshin is over. You can talk again. Read. Have a cookie.

OMFB a Cookie.

Four: There is a path to the end of Sesshin

The path has eight steps

1. Right View - Sure it's painful and exhausting but remember that you're here to have fun.
2. Right Intention - Just to make it through to the end seems like enough of an intention.
3. Right Speech - None. Well, as little as possible. Dish shifts are a good place to sneak in a word or two.
4. Right Action - Do whatever is needed of you in the moment, you might luck out and get to serve tea.
5. Right Livelihood - Do your soji job well, make it your personal mission to keep your area perfect for the week.
6. Right Effort - Try not to miss sittings. Try. I signed out for one evening sit on the tenkin pad: "in room crying".
7. Right Mindfulness - Remember that everyone else around you is going through the same process, give them space.
8. Right Concentration - Enjoy your zazen. It is the dharma gate of bliss and repose, after all.

Keep these four truths in mind of and follow the eight steps and you might do a little better than just Surviving Sesshin.

Practice Period Blues

I only have a day to get this written, the sesshin at the end of the spring practice period at Green Gulch starts Sunday evening. We'll take the refuges after dinner and then it's no talking, no reading, no writing, no eye contact for seven days. After the experience last time I'm not sure exactly how this one will go, but since I can sit all seven days I will.

Follow The Schedule Completely

One of the attractions of monastic life, and therefor of participating fully in a practice period, is that you don't have to waste any time thinking about what to do next. There's a schedule, structure, the meals and services run on time, tea is served at a particular hour, bedtime is announced with clackers, the wake up bell is rung each morning by the shousso. There is a correct way to do everything, and a place and time for every ceremony, even just the ceremony of zazen.

Householders do not enjoy such luxury, we are always juggling multiple schedules, constantly adjusting priorities depending on both necessity and preference. Having kids throws in a level of imperative that makes trade offs that were once unthinkable a practical reality: someone may be likable but flawed, and do I have time for that? In that environment, dedicating time to practice and meet regularly with a teacher means cutting more and more discretionary activity out of your life. When I hear people talk about this as a matter of necessity, not preference, I understand what they mean.

These two worlds come into collision when your teacher leads a practice period. Both residents and visitors who have applied to spend a number of weeks on the farm without leaving, and to sit each morning and through two one day sittings and finally a seven day sesshin at the end. This puts immense demands on the teachers time especially having regular practice discussions with everyone who signed up.

It becomes basically impossible to schedule practice discussion, making your best option to sign up for the one-day and seven-day sits. If a practice period is a tour of duty, i'm a reservist: one weekend a month, seven days a year. While is hard to have a regular schedule interrupted, it's important to consider what a rare thing it is to have access to this level of practice as lay practitioners.

The Inside and the Outside

As a lay practitioner, no matter how serious, there will always be a line between being inside the community and being outside. As much as I try to walk across that line on a regular basis, at the end of the day I can go home, have a beer and a burger and there's no Tenzo to tell me different, no Ino to check in with if I want to skip meditation, no Tanto to keep me from using my iPad at the dinner table.

The support system that makes monastic life possible stays right where it is when we go home.
Being at Green Gulch for a day of sitting, or a week of Sheehin, is a step out of day to day living. But it's not a complete step into monastic living, it's something between, a Zen twilight where the people in the outside world don't quite understand what you're up to, but to a certain extent neither do the people inside.

Just Another One Day

My favorite priest is leading the practice period at Green Gulch this spring so I've signed up for both one day sittings and the Sesshin at the beginning of April which marks the end of the period. I've found myself lamenting the fact that I won't be able to do a full Practice Period for more than ten years, since I have a seven year old and taking three months off from being a dad is basically unthinkable. So, I'll have to make do as a Zen Reservist: one weekend a month, two weeks a year.

Guest Bowls

I had a deadline Friday night at midnight, some work had to be completed and submitted. I also had an aunt visiting from out of town, a doctors appointment and a meeting which I needed to be prepared for. Busy day, lots going on, while I was getting packed for the one day I put my Oryoki set next to the door so I wouldn't forget it.

Around 10PM I finished up and finished getting ready, double checking my reservation I noticed that there wasn't the usual note about the guest house stay. Considering this for a second I packed up a small tent and brought it along, after doing some laundry I finally left the house around 11 PM. Guess what I forgot?

Camping Out

There wasn't an note on the door with my name on it, and I didn't want to bust in at 11:30 and see if there was a room unoccupied I could use for the night and settle up with the office in the morning, besides I hadn't slept out for a while, so I headed down to the beach. Walking through the farm at night with just a crescent moon and the glow of the city over the hills is an experience of sounds and smells (the compost heap is a particularly fragrant spot), the creek babbling along with you on it's way to the ocean, the wind rusting the trees and grasses, the howling of coyote up in the hills, the breath and chewing of the horses outside the bottom gate, the scurrying in the bushes on the path to the beach.

The tent I brought is a bivvy shelter, I can pack it with the mattress and sleeping bag already in and roll them up into a compact bundle that sets up in less than five minutes. The hike down to the beach is about fifteen minutes, so right around midnight I was tucked into bed on Muir Beach, with a great view of the sky and the surf in my ears. Despite that I didn't sleep much, and the first sitting is at five, I had to get up, break camp, hike back and get changed then stash everything back in the car. There was just enough time for coffee.

Wholehearted Sitting
There is a lot of talk about wholehearted practice around here, reminding us that the Way of Zen (and I think any other serious religious practice) demands complete dedication. It's like a marriage, unless you commit to working through the hard times together it's very difficult to make real progress. We see an aspect of this in the Christian tradition of Nuns becoming figuratively married to Christ and wearing bands on their hands.
When we sit on the cushion with the intent of giving ourselves wholly to our own Buddha nature for a day we give up our everyday thinking and engage in examining ourselves so that we can provide support for all brings. It seems like selfish navel gazing but everyone in the zendo is working as hard as they can to improve themselves and help the people around then. Sitting silent and still with that intention is both an welcome break from our daily accumulation of karma and an opportunity to discover how to keep from reacting without first considering the outcomes, which tends to improve the quality of the karma that we do create.

Confession and Repentance
I wasn't very wholehearted in sitting, especially not at Oryoki, which was a bit of a disaster, I neglected to ask the Ino for guest bowls, thinking that the form would the the same as the Saturday morning Oryoki breakfasts at City Center, so there wasn't a tray for whoever came in after me, since I took theirs. I didn't find out about that until after breakfast, which I felt pretty bad about.

There's no setsu, just a paper napkin; a metal spoon, which can be loud against the bowls if you aren't very, very careful; and the chopsticks are very polished lacquer and round, which makes them roll around on the tray and there was no way I could pick up the almonds with them. When we got to the wash cycle I tried to use the paper napkin on the end of the spook as a setsu, which almost works. When it came time to drink the ambrosia I was amused to find that it tasted a lot like paper napkin.

The services felt good to do twice in a day, but I was completely relieved when i was on the morning dish shift. Lunch in the Zendo went better than breakfast, I figured out how to clean with the napkin so that it doesn't end up disintegrating into the cleaning water, made a nice stack of bowls and dropped them off in the kitchen. Took a walk down the farm road for a bit then back for a coffee or two before the afternoon sits started.

Exit Strategy
After tea, there is a short break, I stopped by the office and signed up for the sesshin at the end of the practice period and at that point, already in my jacket, with my car key in my hand, that I knew it was time to go home. My legs were complaining louder and louder as the day progressed, my lack of sleep catching up with me, I pulled a sheet of paper out of my pocket and penciled in a quick note to the Ino, who wasn't at her post in Cloud Hall, stopped to tell the Doshi's Jika just to make sure and got in the car.

I drove across the bridge and into the city, not to my house but directly to Macy's. I needed to buy some sheets and new pillows for the house, having thrown out the old ones the night before. After taking them home and putting them in the washer I called up a friend who had been wanting to talk and went out to dinner. So, in the end, I skipped out on the last three sittings to go shopping, eat fancy food and have drinks with a buddy.

Looks like I'm going to need a little more practice.