The Evening Gatha is read at the end of the evening service, to close out the day. We file in to the zendo an hour before, quiet conversations slowly drifting to silence as we gather. We sit twenty-five minutes of zazen, do ten minutes of slow walking (kinhin), spend twenty-five more minutes on the cushion, then chant the four vows three times. It is dark outside, with the light in the temple muted, giving the sit a hazy feeling. This sit is quiet, but it is a different sort of quiet than other times of the day. It’s not the crisp sort of sit we do first thing in the morning, everyone fresh from a good night’s sleep and clear with first light. No, at this hour we are tired from the day, and the zendo seems to fill with a relaxed and subdued quiet. Then, out of the fading of our last chants, the cantor’s voice fills the room:
Let me respectfully remind you…
Life and Death are of Supreme Importance…
Life is short,
Time passes quickly,
Let us awaken,
Awaken,
Take heed…
Do not squander this life.
It is Saturday morning, the third day of retreat, and I am up early, my body not quite shifted to Mountain Time. A knock on the door, it is my neighbor reminding me of the eclipse. We stand in the yard, clay sand with sage and mesquite shrubs, and watch the white moon slowly thin as it hangs over the dimly lit town. “This is why they used to sacrifice virgins” one of us mutters once only a thin sliver of red remains. “Do not squander this life.”
Two days later we have the afternoon off. I am curled up in the courtyard, on a blanket in the grass, basking in the sun. The wind rustles the leaves above me, finches chirp and flutter around, the occasional car drives past along the road on the other side of the house. Then an odd noise, similar to the cell-phone water drop I would hear at work, but at short, steady intervals. I look up to see a crow flapping deeply to gain speed and altitude, the wake of it’s wings creating the sound. “Do not squander this life.”Two days later we are again in the courtyard. Nature Boy* (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Michelangelo’s David) is watering the trees. “Want to see something beautiful?” The next thing we know a brown garter snake is winding in his hands, its red tongue flicking at us with the same curiosity we have for it. Then it is on the ground, almost levitating above the grass in perfect S-es as it seeks shelter in nearby rocks. “Do not squander this life.”
The theme for the second week seemed to be practicing in the body. Our morning schedule stayed relatively the same: zazen, service, soji, breakfast, a short break, then samu, more sitting and lunch; but in the afternoon, instead of more samu as we had done the week before, we went on group walks along trails in the surrounding hills. And when I say ‘hills’, I mean the foothills of the Sangre de Cristos, the southern stretch of the Rockies, that rise to nine-ish thousand feet just east of Santa Fe. (The Zen Center is at 7,400 feet.)
The first day I went out with the ‘advanced’ group, mostly because I had done the ‘moderate’ group trail the day before. We headed out along the river (six feet wide and two feet deep where we crossed), along Upper Canyon Road to a trail that wandered along a dry stream bed that wound between two hills. Until this point I had kept the pack in sight, but with me huffing and puffing (already?) they were quickly out of sight. Soon the trail wound sharply up the west face of the canyon. Then, a flat open spot with a small stretch of the river and the houses along it were in clear view below. After a short break I continue up. I pace myself, still smarting from Tsankawi, and as the trail twists back towards the canyon I stop to catch my breath. Suddenly, a flock of towhees erupt from a thicket of piñon and fly as one down the hill. “Do not squander this life.”
The second day I do the ‘puppy’ trail (my word), along the well cultivated trails at the local Audubon Center. (One of the center’s residents is Dutch; imagine his surprise when advised we would be walking at the ‘Auto-Bahn’.) But the next I was back with the advanced group, this time to the east, along the trails towards Castle Rock. This is the day I start to get my trail legs again; I huff and I puff up the steep inclines, stopping frequently to catch my breath (and take a good look at the beauty around me) but each time I am able to continue. After an hour I reach a point that offers a clear view to the west: not only Santa Fe, but also the white hangars at Los Alamos and the fire scarred mountains along the western horizon. “Do not squander this life.”The speaker for the second weekend was John Dunne. Small in stature, and likely to go unnoticed in a crowd, he is an incredibly intelligent man. He spent close to ten years studying with lamas and Rinpoches both in the States and abroad, and is well versed in Tibetan culture and teachings. He also has acquired many of their affects: rapid clipped speech interrupted by long pauses for consideration, a melodic cavorting tone, and the Yoda-like laugh I have found to be almost ubiquitous amongst Tibetan scholars. His lectures speak to the dualistic nature of mind, the construction of I and another, us and the other, that there is an inner narrative but also an inner someone to hear it. One segment focussed on our mental construction of the world (what he calls reification or ’storifying’), and all the biases (anchoring, confirmation bias, inattention blindness, bandwagon effect) that come with it. I found this segment fascinating; I have spent my time during and since grad school studying these processes with respect to aircrew and maintenance decision-making, and while I have found dharma teachings useful when applied to these domains, I had not thought to explore them on the cushion. “Do not squander this life.” The afternoon is spent on methods to deconstruct our constructions (de-reification).
On Sunday afternoon we had council, checking in one last time before the big event: sesshin, five days of silent practice. Could I do it? Or will I crack? Stay Tuned for the next Episode of the Dharma Hobo….
🙂