A Day At the Zen Center
I did my first all day meditation, or "sesshin" at the San Francisco Zen Center yesterday.
The idea behind sesshin goes all the way back to Buddha's time. In India monks would wander begging for their food during the dry season, then they would all gather around the Buddha to practice together and listen to him speak during the rainy season. This evolved into the "Practice Period" of ninety days, in which the teaching is related to a theme. During this time there are more intensive periods of practice called sesshins in japanese, in which most of the day is spent in zazen. There are one day, three day, and seven day sesshins and this was my first. It was a one day event.
I could hear the han as I arrived at San Francisco Zen Center at 5:20. The han is a board that is struck with a wooden mallet to call monks to the zendo for zazen. At the end of the round of beating the han, the person striking it lets the mallet bounce off the wood, making a sound exactly like a woodpecker. I've heard that when Beginner's Mind Temple started, local cabdrivers used to call it Woodpecker House. (SFZC is the organization. The monastery on Page Street is named Hosshin-ji, or Beginner's mind temple, although it is usually referred to as City Center or just the Zen Center.) I found my assigned spot on the platform, set up my seiza bench, and knelt facing the wall.
In zazen you meditate with your eyes open facing the wall which makes it easier to stay awake and harder to watch the movies that run through your head while "just sitting". There are several sitting positions you can use, but since I broke both my legs last year I kneel with a high seiza bench supporting my weight, or sit in a chair. Because I set up before the official starting time of the first sitting, that first session was closer to an hour than the usual forty minutes, and during the last ten minutes or so I suddenly became flushed, felt dizzy, and broke into a cold sweat. Maybe it was because I had a cold, maybe it was because it hit me that I was about to spend most of the next 12 hours kneeling on this platform.
In between sessions of zazen you do kinhin, which is a walking meditation done very slowly around the quadrants of the zendo. It's a welcome relief from the physical stresses of zazen, but it's still a mindfulness exercise and a form of meditation. Everything in sesshin is a mindfulness exercise - even meals. We ate oryoki style in the zendo. Oryoki is a set of three bowls, cloths, and utensils that zen monks use to eat. Everything about oryoki is very ritualized and exact. It is the "tea ceremony" of eating. If you type "oryoki" into the Youtube search engine, you'll get a good idea of what it's like. All of the newbies had to have a class on it the night before, so we wouldn't embarrass ourselves. Also, the Ino (Master of Zazen) was really good about seating all the first-timers between experienced people.
I had two work assignments during the day: breakfast cleanup and zendo cleaning later on. (Yes, Denise. The reason your zafu and support cushions were so spotlessly clean after the work session was because I brushed them. I tried extra hard on yours, and I appreciate the work you did in the kitchen after dinner.) Work, like everything else during sesshin, is a mindfullness exercise, and as much as possible performed silently.
Let me say a word about that. I'm not usually an overly talkative person, but total silence does not come naturally to me. As time went on, I found it difficult. Other physical challenges I expected: back pain, knee pain. One that I did not expect was that halfway through the day the lower ribs on my left side began to hurt, an exquisite, neuropathic-type sensation that somehow seemed linked to the back pain. Apart from one session in a chair and one lying down to relieve the back pain, I was able to sit in seiza the rest of the day. I'm actually kind of proud of that, as it was one of my goals.
At the end of the day we had dinner in the dining room, The Ino had announced, "The first ten minutes of dinner will be in silence, after which normal conversation may commence." When people started talking, I breathed a sigh of relief, and said to another newbie, "We'll never again be able to say,'This is my first sesshin.'" Then another person turned a little card sitting on the table so I could read it. "This table remains silent throughout the meal."
Oh well. It gave me time to think.
When I got home, (Thanks again, Denise, for the lift.) my wife said, "I'll just let you sit for awhile and be blissed out" But that's not how I felt, and I'm kind of glad. Zazen isn't about bliss. It's about allowing yourself to be fully present with whatever is happening, and I think if I started feeling blissed out after a one day sitting I would always be looking for that feeling in zazen. What I did feel was a sense of accomplishment, and the feeling that I would never need to have any fear about doing sesshin again.
The idea behind sesshin goes all the way back to Buddha's time. In India monks would wander begging for their food during the dry season, then they would all gather around the Buddha to practice together and listen to him speak during the rainy season. This evolved into the "Practice Period" of ninety days, in which the teaching is related to a theme. During this time there are more intensive periods of practice called sesshins in japanese, in which most of the day is spent in zazen. There are one day, three day, and seven day sesshins and this was my first. It was a one day event.
I could hear the han as I arrived at San Francisco Zen Center at 5:20. The han is a board that is struck with a wooden mallet to call monks to the zendo for zazen. At the end of the round of beating the han, the person striking it lets the mallet bounce off the wood, making a sound exactly like a woodpecker. I've heard that when Beginner's Mind Temple started, local cabdrivers used to call it Woodpecker House. (SFZC is the organization. The monastery on Page Street is named Hosshin-ji, or Beginner's mind temple, although it is usually referred to as City Center or just the Zen Center.) I found my assigned spot on the platform, set up my seiza bench, and knelt facing the wall.
In zazen you meditate with your eyes open facing the wall which makes it easier to stay awake and harder to watch the movies that run through your head while "just sitting". There are several sitting positions you can use, but since I broke both my legs last year I kneel with a high seiza bench supporting my weight, or sit in a chair. Because I set up before the official starting time of the first sitting, that first session was closer to an hour than the usual forty minutes, and during the last ten minutes or so I suddenly became flushed, felt dizzy, and broke into a cold sweat. Maybe it was because I had a cold, maybe it was because it hit me that I was about to spend most of the next 12 hours kneeling on this platform.
In between sessions of zazen you do kinhin, which is a walking meditation done very slowly around the quadrants of the zendo. It's a welcome relief from the physical stresses of zazen, but it's still a mindfulness exercise and a form of meditation. Everything in sesshin is a mindfulness exercise - even meals. We ate oryoki style in the zendo. Oryoki is a set of three bowls, cloths, and utensils that zen monks use to eat. Everything about oryoki is very ritualized and exact. It is the "tea ceremony" of eating. If you type "oryoki" into the Youtube search engine, you'll get a good idea of what it's like. All of the newbies had to have a class on it the night before, so we wouldn't embarrass ourselves. Also, the Ino (Master of Zazen) was really good about seating all the first-timers between experienced people.
I had two work assignments during the day: breakfast cleanup and zendo cleaning later on. (Yes, Denise. The reason your zafu and support cushions were so spotlessly clean after the work session was because I brushed them. I tried extra hard on yours, and I appreciate the work you did in the kitchen after dinner.) Work, like everything else during sesshin, is a mindfullness exercise, and as much as possible performed silently.
Let me say a word about that. I'm not usually an overly talkative person, but total silence does not come naturally to me. As time went on, I found it difficult. Other physical challenges I expected: back pain, knee pain. One that I did not expect was that halfway through the day the lower ribs on my left side began to hurt, an exquisite, neuropathic-type sensation that somehow seemed linked to the back pain. Apart from one session in a chair and one lying down to relieve the back pain, I was able to sit in seiza the rest of the day. I'm actually kind of proud of that, as it was one of my goals.
At the end of the day we had dinner in the dining room, The Ino had announced, "The first ten minutes of dinner will be in silence, after which normal conversation may commence." When people started talking, I breathed a sigh of relief, and said to another newbie, "We'll never again be able to say,'This is my first sesshin.'" Then another person turned a little card sitting on the table so I could read it. "This table remains silent throughout the meal."
Oh well. It gave me time to think.
When I got home, (Thanks again, Denise, for the lift.) my wife said, "I'll just let you sit for awhile and be blissed out" But that's not how I felt, and I'm kind of glad. Zazen isn't about bliss. It's about allowing yourself to be fully present with whatever is happening, and I think if I started feeling blissed out after a one day sitting I would always be looking for that feeling in zazen. What I did feel was a sense of accomplishment, and the feeling that I would never need to have any fear about doing sesshin again.