Saturday was... Saturday. I don't know any words that fit just right. "Fun" isn't right, it wasn't like a theme park. "Good" is too bland and over used. The same with "nice." "Peaceful" arouse images of water falls and chirping birds and health spas with beautiful people in subdued pastel colors. I guess "simple" is closest. "Uncluttered" and "unhurried" are right there too. The word I'm grasping for makes my mind stop; maybe there isn't a word.
What act in our days do we have to compare it to? How often do we do something just to do it? No goals, no wish to reach a certain point. We walk to get somewhere. We work to go home. We sit to watch TV. We eat to satisfy cravings. We're too busy worrying about "there" to notice "here". We aren't ever taught to do something just to enjoy it. So its tough to describe accurately.
I sat with about a dozen people in silence for thirty minutes at a time. We uncrossed our legs and rose when the bell rang and the clappers clapped and walked out of the small zendo with our hands in front of us reservedly. We walked in line, our steps matching the ones in front of us around the yard with flowers and dried grass for ten minutes. Then we sat again. Repeat.
After three hours we had breakfast. The meals were the more complex part of the day and all they entailed was the unwrapping of our three bowls and chopsticks. Hand gestures instructed the servers to stop filling our glasses, to give a little bit more food, and when it was enough. We ate on our mats, still cross-legged, and cleaned our bowls before wrapping them back up and placing them behind us. Thirty minutes for each meal doesn't lend itself to slow, mindful eating! The food was good and hot. Then we sat again.
There were two work periods in which I cleared a rose patch of weeds and racked fallen leaves. After both there was another thirty minute block reserved for rest. We all sat outside in the sun. The breaks seemed to last a long time.
Then more sitting. I know it must sound monotonous and boring, but it wasn't. I was only in danger of falling asleep twice and it wasn't very serious. It was during the two lectures we heard on a CD player.
Take a test: Sit somewhere quiet for ten minutes. It doesn't matter how you sit as long as you aren't leaning up against anything. Now, watch your body and keep it totally relaxed. Breath deep into your belly with every inhale. Keep you jaw together but not tense. Make sure you shoulders aren't bunched up (the hardest part for me) and that no part of you is tense. Don't scratch or shift your weight. Remain still. Its tough. As soon as you got one place relaxed another tightens up. As soon as that place is take care of, the first place is acting up. Then you realize you're breathing shallowly and your stomach isn't relaxed. It easily took up my attention for the entire day.
I was wearing a black, long-sleeved shirt with James Taylor on the front. I can't remember how far into it I was, but after the one-hundred-millionth iteration of "I've seen fire and I've seen rain, I've seen sunny days..." I figured I needed to get more focused. A single song on repeat ten times is annoying. A five second clip of one song hundreds of times, in your head, is horrible. I renewed my efforts to relax my body and watch my breath. At probably seven hours in my mind stopped. There were no thoughts to look at or to get carried away by. It was... clear. Like a clean mirror. Or a still lake where you can see the bottom. Just aware. It lasted about ten minutes I think. But it was there, I saw it. No-thought.
The trick is exactly like that described in Douglas Adams' books concerning flying. As soon as you think, "I'm flying!" you stop flying and drop to the ground. When I was younger I didn't get how you could know you were flying without thinking about it. Now I understand. Thought isn't all there is to us. Its a tiny part that makes lots of noise. There's something else bigger there. The part that knows how to fly.
For eight hours my legs cooperated. Not even a whimper. Then suddenly whichever leg was not on the bottom decided to let me know how unhappy it was by causing pain in the knee and ankle. It didn't fall asleep. It hurt. The word that comes to mind here is "searing".
At this point my mind was saying, "Just move. Uncross your legs. Next sitting period just sit on the edge like Sokai (the abbot) said to do if you experienced pain. This is your first time! No one will care, they don't expect you to be perfect at this." I considered it for a short time. When you sit in silence for thirty minutes that's one of the only things you can do.
I reflected that Zen meditation is about overcoming things like this. Cold, hunger, a fly on your nose, sore knees, itches. Any type of compulsion that is normally satisfied without hesitation. If you can't control the urge to scratch an itch, how can you reign in anything else, like anger?
I didn't move. I didn't sit on the edge. I continued to sit normally, despite the pain in my joints. I remembered something I had heard and just looked at the pain without any commenting. It hurt! But then it just got warm. I looked at it square in the face and it was only a sensation. It stopped being something other than just that. I smiled and felt so much relief. Not just from the pain. But because I had proof. Proof it works. A few days later I had another drastic example, but I won't go into that now. Its enough to say that I now know for a fact, for myself, from my own direct experience, that meditation is beneficial in more ways than just taking a break or being less apt to yell at traffic.
In its own complete way five-thirty came and the bell was rung for the last time. We put our small square mats on the floor and did three full prostrations (a bow all the way to the floor) and waited, standing, with our hands palm to palm while the meditation leader left the zendo. Then we brushed off our mats, poofed up the cushions, and walked out into the evening sun.
There was beer and popcorn. People talked and joked a little. A woman named Christina who had been in my field of vision for the better part of twelve hours introduced herself to me. During meditation she looked serious and a little off-standish. Now she was warm and friendly. She asked if it was my first time. Mostly everyone was gone in thirty minutes. I stayed a little later waiting for my ride and helped the abbot clean up fallen popcorn and we talked about GoDaddy and moving the zen center's website over there. I noticed I wasn't nervous being around people like I am all the time. No tight belly or wringing of hands. Just talking.
The Misses came and I went home. I wasn't tired or giddy. Just there, listening to her day of cleaning in preparation for her parents. Come ten o'clock I was so tired I had to go to bed, despite company. Sorry guys! I was up at four-fifteen in the morning!
I'm glad I went. I will be going again as these retreats are offered monthly. The benefits I continue to experience make it easy to go back. Its easy to take medicine once you know first-hand it works.
- BuddhaDave
Anyone awake out there?
