Week 9: Sit, Walk, Write

“Make positive effort for good, continue under all circumstances, and don’t be thrown away.”   ~ Katagiri Roshi to Natalie Goldberg

So, looking back, following sesshin with a writing retreat may not have been the best idea.

I had enthusiastically signed up for the retreat when it was announced three months before.  I had been to a a similar class with the same teacher in the fall and had loved it, seventy-six women and four really brave men, all writing our hearts out.  The snapshots of life that emerged had been so touching: a first dance or first kiss, the travails and unravellings of marriage, a near drowning, a newborn that would not survive the day, glimpses of children told with great humor, and I was eager to repeat the experience.  The one thing I had not anticipated was how raw I would feel after sesshin.
The group for this retreat was smaller than the previous class, about sixty of us including eight men.  The teachers, a female writing coach famous for spreading writing as Zen practice and a male creative writing professor from a nearby uni, had been working together for many years.  The retreat began Wednesday night with a dharma talk, or, in this case, a dharma slide show.  The female teacher also paints, and as we went through the slides of her work she encouraged us to focus on the details of a scene: light as it fell on a chair, the different colors of a tile roof, the elements of a backyard afternoon.  The author had painted her father over the years, and it was interesting to watch  the shift in both her painting style and their relationship over time as the years passed.As the talk progressed, these reflections transitioned in to a conversation between the two, banter back and forth about art as a form of mindfulness, and the importance of closely attending to what is in front of you.
The next morning we were back in the zendo for lecture, the female instructor taking the lead.  We went around the room, giving our name and where we were from (the Netherlands, Spain, Australia, Brazil, various places in Canada and the States, and my bravely offered ‘dharma hobo’).  The rules would be simple: keep your pen moving, no crossing out, say what you Want To Say rather than what you Think You Should Say.  An hour in we were given our first topic ‘write what is in front of you’ and we were off.  After more lecture (how does it feel, where did your mind go, is your hand sore?) we split in to small groups and did a series of topics, ten minute sprints followed with reading aloud to each other, then lunch and a break.  In late afternoon we met in smaller groups for more writing sprints***, zazen, dinner, and a lazy lecture peppered with volunteers reading aloud to the larger group.  The evening would close with listening meditation, in the form of a song sung by one of the attendees.  This was our schedule for the next few days.
We had been assigned two books to read for the retreat: one fiction (or as the teacher called it, “Li-ter-a-tyoore”) and the other an anthology of American Zen teachings and anecdotes.  The second day’s lecture was on the work of fiction: decomposing the structure, analyzing the characters and their arcs, placing the story in the greater cultural context.  I was a fish out of water for this one: I had not made it through the book.   The novel was set in New England, focussed around a hate crime eerily similar to actual events, with the descriptions, people and their actions cold and sharp.  I had abandoned it a hundred or so pages in, the chilly feel too much for me after the frigid February  I had fled two months before. Prompts for five words to describe each of the characters drew a blank, and to fill the space my mind began to drift: What makes something literature as opposed to fiction? Why was this gloomy story somehow more ’substantial’ or worthy than humorous fiction?  Why is a family falling apart more ‘credible’ than a young couple finding each other?  In the end, I listed random descriptors during the exercises and went with the flow.
The Zen anthology was the work of the male teacher, so the third morning’s lecture was fascinating: how he came to meet the masters (driving them to lectures while he was a student at the Jack Kerouak School of Disembodied Poetics), how he came to the idea of the book (there was something similar in other Zen traditions but not Western Buddhism), his writing practice (while he was the primary teacher’s assistant during a series of retreats), the actual process of interviewing his subjects (which never went as planned), and the publishing process (he also writes fiction and his editor re-sequenced his book releases to optimize audience draw).  He admitted how he had stumbled during the writing process; his first book (a fictionalized telling of a coast-to-coast peace walk) was written while crashing in a friends garage, the bulk of it written during the last month of the four-month invite.  He also described how he came to be a creating writing professor, and how this informed (and deepened) his own writing and his voice.
During the previous retreat I had been surprised to discover how much I enjoyed writing sprints.  The shortness of the intervals made it seem deceptively possible and I would jump in, but then my mind would ‘run out’ at six minutes and the pen would need to keep moving.  It turns out this is when the magic happens, when you run out of what you have planned to write and just write, sometimes junk but more often what you really want or need to say.  The reading aloud had been a challenge at first, mostly from insecurity, but also because I found myself writing things I had never told anyone, sometimes even myself.  With the reading aloud we found each other had the same reticence, and speaking the words helped us find the rhythm of our writing voices.  During this retreat, the writing sprints were again my favorite part.
We would meet to write in late afternoon, as the sun lazed towards the horizon, the brightness belying the high desert chill.  My group was in the kitchen, in the corners while we wrote and coming together at the butchers block to read aloud.  The silence (or near silence) of the previous weeks had had me drifting to the edge of the group during the workshop and meals, and I found my self writing from the edges as well.  “What will you have to say goodbye to when you die?” Two birds pulling dandelion fluff outside my window, the grey bird that sings from the top branch of the pine after breakfast, the new friend with a big hug out of the blue that makes me feel so safe.  “Something lost forever” Nights spent at the short track, dreams of our own team, KPM Racing: K now in a box, M lost in Afghanistan during a civil rescue flight, photos of his flag-draped coffin a favorite among the hawks calling for increased hostilities, and P, still with us, but damaged from his service.  “A secret I’ve never told anyone” Dancing around life in a secure environment, at the time it seemed cool but as the years pass you grow weary and distanced from those you love for reasons you cannot share.
More interesting was the work of the other writers.  “Your mother’s hands” A gentleman described hers caring for him as a child, playing the piano as she grew older, wrinkled and weak in her later years, and how much he will miss them when she is gone.  Another woman described her grandmother, holding her close to her Singapore roots while supporting her as she found her way in a new land. ‘Music you love” The same man admits Dylan, his creaky voice now obscuring his lyrics, has been replaced by Brittney (Spears), her new album filled with strong songs sung in a clear voice, and isn’t she making something of herself these days?   “Red, without blood, cherries or apples” A sunset in Mozambique mixed with the passion of protest anthems, from a relief worker weary from taming an epidemic in a war zone far from home. “Something lost forever” A friend, an sister, the perfection of a supermodel- gorgeous socialite’s soft hands to third degree burns. “Who would you trade places with?  A recent widower challenged liver cancer to take him instead of his beloved, a mother offering to take the place of her recently lost adult child.  Each day brought new treasures, each more heartbreaking than the one before.  By Saturday night there was not a dry eye in the house.
By the end I was drained, and eager to hit the road.  Sunday evening I packed up the car, and Monday morning I drove out, my truck pointed west towards the California coast.
*** Some topics for writing sprints (if you’d like to try them)
Keep your hand moving, do not cross out, ten minutes, GO!
What did you not pack?
What you are thinking of/not thinking of
Tell me about your mothers hands
Tell me about red (no blood, cherries, apples)
Describe a meal you have loved
Something that has made you laugh
Where do words come from?
What you are looking at/not looking at
What you want to hear/don’t want to hear
What is your original face?

Week 8: Sesshin

I’ll admit it, I was scared.  That long, staring at a wall, no talking?  For all my talk of how wonderful it would be, when the time came I didn’t think I could do it.  No way, nuh-huh, not gonna happen. These folks are serious sitters; at this point I was still spending most of my time sitting zazen in a chair.  There was no way I could keep up with them.  Mulling it over the night before, I revised my ambitions down to “stick it out for as long as I can”.
Sesshin began late afternoon Tuesday with Oryoki training.  Oryoki is the ritualized way we would be taking our meals while in the zendo.  I’m not quite sure how to explain it to you.  The training began with each of us being given a bundle of cloths, nested bowls, and utensils.  The Ino (monk in charge of the temple) then gave precise instructions on how to unfold the bundles and lay out these objects: cloths on your left leg, under your napkin, bowls largest to smallest left to right, utensils just so.  Next: how to interact with our servers (no eye contact, when to bow, hand signals to use); the precise forms for eating (which to eat first, where to place our utensils as we shifted from bowl to bowl, and the different offerings during the different meals.  If I hadn’t been intimidated enough about sesshin before, I was now.  After dinner was the formal welcome, a review of the day-to-day schedule, and an opportunity for last minute questions.  At the end of the meeting we bowed and left for our rooms in silence.
This week’s schedule would also be more rigorous than the last two.  Zazen began an hour earlier; what had been heralded by the bell of a nearby church ringing dawn’s light during the previous weeks now unfolded in the silence of darkness.  I would sit, one of twenty-four, following my breath, eyes loosely focussed on a seam in the polished wood floor, and sense the light slowly shift from reflected candlelight to a hint of sun.  The bell would ring and we would kinhin, slow mindful walking (and washroom break), and I would slip to the enclosed walkway behind the zendo to walk in the unfolding dawn.  Another bell and we were back to the cushion for more sitting and the morning service.  But now, a change from previous weeks, a chime, and ‘Prepare for Oriyoki’.  We would scoot back our mats and the ritualized meal would begin.
DSCN2543After a short break, it was back in the zendo for the morning schedule.  We began with an hour of samu (work practice).  Then, in a slight deviation from a ‘normal’ sesshin: a ‘dharma hike’.  We met in the Buddha Garden, slowly circling around the fountain.  Then, still in silence, we snake out in a line to the top of the parking lot and east along the road to a local trail.  The trail wound up a dry canyon between two collections of homes, the runoff from yards (technically illegal in this dry climate) creating an occasional pocket of meadow grasses and reeds.  We would stop at an intersection halfway up the hill, circle and wait for the slower walkers (okay, the other folks would wait for me), and then walk back the way we came.  Over the days we self-organized, the faster walkers were up front and the slower straggling along behind like the ice tail of a comet.  We would meet folks along the way: trail runners, mountain bikers, dog walkers, and one lady, walking by herself the same time every day (as we were) with a sad lonely look on her face.  I would wonder what they thought of us, a long line of somewhat shabby people, walking in silence, hands clasped at our bellies, eyes slightly down.  After trail it was another hour in the zendo (sit, walk, sit) and lunch.  Afternoon was a similar schedule: samu, an hour of yoga instead of walking and more sitting.  After dinner we had one final sit, evening service, and then it was lights out.
I was horrible at all of it.
DSCN2157First, the sitting.  How hard could it be, you ask?  Didn’t you sit for hours at your desk, or curled up reading on the weekends?  You would be surprised.  For one, there is the physical posture.  There were four sitting options, three on a cushion (lotus, half-lotus and kneeling), and the chair.  It became obvious the first week that I should stick to the chair.  I had been fine doing this during the lectures, but it seemed a little lame to do an entire sesshin in a black folding chair. Fortunately, one of my fellow retreatants was a yoga teacher, and he encouraged me to try different sitting poses and heights (one cushion, two cushions, or sometimes three).  By the time sesshin came around I had found one that I could hold for most of a sit without my legs falling asleep.  But I still wasn’t up for a full day.
Then there was the mental posture.  The goal in zen is to watch your breath without attachment.  Of course the mind wanders, and the trick is to catch it an bring your attention back to your breath.  I am usually pretty good at the wandering part, it is the catching it part I was hoping to improve.  Lucky for me, with the five sits a day I had plenty of opportunities.  But with the expanded schedule, I encountered a new and unexpected challenge.  The Tibetans believe that monks who fall asleep during practice come back as a dog.  Lets just say that by the lunchtime on the second day it was clear I will be a dog in my next life.
The other challenge was oryoki.  I had done my best to follow the instructions during the training, but to be honest, with no prior exposure it was like drinking from a fire hose.  Normally this is accommodated by alternating novice and veteran on the seating chart, but somehow during meals I ended up on the end of my row paired with a novice.  Lets just say we did our best, and with the most sincerity we could muster.  But mistakes were made, and I was the frequent recipient of corrections from the Abbot.
My favorite part of sesshin by far was the yoga.  If you have seen me get up from a long stretch at my computer any time recently, you know I could use more of this.  I say ‘more’ as I have been doing yoga, either to a video or in a class on and off for about twenty years.  And late afternoon, after our third sit, was the perfect time for it.    I would get up from the cushion, lower legs half asleep (and despite this, sore!), hips slightly creaky, and after a quick break position my mat with the others to one side of the zendo.  Since this was silent yoga the two teachers worked in tandem, one at the front of the group alerting changes with a deep out-breath, while the other moved among the group providing adjustments.  Together they led us through a series of slow restorative poses designed to increase our energy and stretch us out from the hours on the cushion.  But I was out of practice, and huffed and puffed through the sequences, my body resisting every posture.
DSCN2147Then, on the third day, something shifted.  We filed in to the zendo, took our places on our cushions, and once the bell rang slipped in to silence.  As the minutes passed, it became a beautiful silence, a clear silence more silent than any I had heard before, the silence that arises from twenty-four people deliberately holding mind and body still.   Someone would cough, and instead of rippling through the room, we held each other in practice and silence would emerge again.  This synchronicity carried through the day: I was able to keep up during the walk; I noticed (and corrected) the visual illusion that was causing me to nod off; and at lunchtime our seats were rearranged so I was next to an experienced oryoki-er.  Even my yoga improved: muscle memory began to kick in and I was able to stretch in to the forms.
On the fourth day we awoke to a special treat.  Lying in bed, the world seemed stiller than usual, as if the resonant silence from the day before had carried through the night.  I stumbled bleary-eyed to the kitchen, and there, framed by the kitchen window and lit by the courtyard light: falling snow.  It must have started in the night; as I watched, the new flakes added to the thin blanket of snow that hovered above the grasses and and nestled in the leaves of sage.  The snow continued as we sat, and I got up during kinhin so I could watch it fall and then sit below the window as the sun rose behind the clouds.  But the fragile precip was no match for the thin dry high desert air.  The sun emerged from the clouds as we emerged from breakfast, it was melting steadily during our walk, and by lunchtime it was gone.
The fifth morning was our last together, and I was a bit nostalgic as I traipsed down the flagstones to our haven.  We took our seats, set our intentions, and then sat together one last time.  Breathing in, breathing out, the monk next to me a rock, an occasional cough on my other side, with muffled sobs and heavy breathing (or quiet snores ) from further down the row.  Then, too soon, the bell and we began our morning chants and bows.  Once finished, for the first time since we began “Good Morning” closed the service and we filed to the kitchen for breakfast.  After ten minutes the clackers clacked.  A ‘thank you’ and our quiet intimacy was over.
I had made it all the way through.  No one was more surprised than me.
Of course there was much more than I have included here, many stumbles and small kindnesses as we helped each other through the week, and watching spring unfold.  There was also the odd way silence can create relationships more intimate than words.  I may circle back at some point with more memories.  But for now, back to the world of spoken language.
🙂