Dancing on the Wind - 8 Days of Everyday Zen

Last week I had the opportunity to attend a Zen Sesshin (meditation retreat) on Samish Island in Washington. A number of people have asked me what it was like so I thought it might be useful to share my experience.

The eight day retreat was organized by the Red Cedar Zen Community in Bellingham, WA and attended by practitioners from across the US. The majority of the attendees were affiliated with Soto Zen Centers in the Pacific Northwest. For many of these the guiding teacher is Norman Fischer. Norman has been a Zen student for over 30 years and is in the lineage of Sunryu Suzuki from the San Francisco Zen Center. Norman was abbot of that center for five years. Subsequently he chose to focus on promoting lay Zen practice and created the Everyday Zen Foundation. He is a published author and poet with wide ranging interests. He is also a compassionate and engaging speaker.

It is not easy to write about Sesshin, a Japanese term for intensive practice that means "Gathering the Mind". Although I could describe the schedule and explain the terminology of Zen that would produce little understanding of what it is actually like inside the retreat itself. Just the same here are the basics. This form of Buddhist practice is Japanese and reflects their cultural sense of order. You enter the Zendo in accordance with strict guidelines. Shoes are removed at the door, you bow at the entrance to the practice area where cushions are arranged in a large rectangle around a small alter containing incense, flowers and a statue of Buddha. Students are expected to sit in the same spot throughout sesshin and there are a variety of Zabutons (large cushioned floor mats), Zafus (cushions), Seiza benches or even chairs used depending on personal preference or medical necessity. A few people would even lie down. There are formal Zendo positions for an Ino (practice leader) and Tenkin (responsible for signaling transitions with a singing bowl or wooden blocks). The Ino, Tenkin, Roshi (teacher) and his Jisha (assistant) sit at the entrance to the practice area.

We practiced sitting and walking meditation for 6-8 hours a day. Zazen (sitting meditation) was conducted in 30 minute increments punctuated by Kinhin (walking meditation) which lasts around 10 minutes per session. The rhythm of Zazen-Kinhin-Zazen-Kinhin-Zazen is repeated morning and evening and provides structure for your inner practice. During Kinhin you are free to take care of your biological needs and there are formal procedures for entering and leaving the practice area during these transitions. Sleep is limited to about seven hours assuming you go to bed immediately after evening service, some would return to the Zendo at night and continue to sit. Doing this on the last night is traditionally considered very powerful. We rose to the bell at 5:00am. Once you understand the schedule you can safely remove your watch as two wooden Han (gongs struck with a mallet) or a larger bell in the dining hall would signal the next activity at appropriate times. I will admit I left mine on for the entire week. There were classes in the early part of the week on dharma topics, opportunities for private practice discussions with various Zen priests and formal Dokusan (individual teaching) with Norman Fischer. Norman gave a dharma talk once a day. We held traditional services several times a day involving chanting and prostrations. There were a few special services including a Jukai lay ordination and a spirit calming ceremony dedicated to the Samish Indians. Meals were vegetarian and mostly conducted in silence. Although the first half of the retreat was semi-informal the second half was almost completely silent. In the middle of the day we held Samu (work practice) for an hour and this was very helpful to the retreat facility... Zen students are pretty hard workers. Most of this is the typical sesshin experience. But so far I've told you nothing.

The inner work that happens during sesshin is deeply personal and elements of it are hard to describe in words. I can only describe what happens inside myself, others may report a different experience. The first few days are a time to slow down the mind and come to some sort of personal equilibrium. Changing to a vegetarian diet is typically a challenge for me, at least in the first few days, but the process is cleansing in very subtle ways. It becomes a meditation on the toxicity of my daily life and the need for more deliberate choices. After three days or so my body and mind calm down and the real inner work begins. Although formal meditation may look regimented the inner experience is far from identical from moment to moment. The mind alternates between periods of monkey-mind (undisciplined meandering) and penetrating silence as well as every possible state in between. The pain of sitting Zazen is part of the experience although to me this is often over-emphasized in published reports about Zen. I found a lot of the artificial barriers to practice evaporated when I switched to a Seiza bench.

This is how practice works for me. Contemplation of the body gives way to contemplation of feelings and then to contemplation of the mind and objects of mind. One of my classes dove into a sutra that described this sequence in detail and it resonated with my experience in ways I had not grasped before. In the early part of the week I used exercises I learned from Tibetan practice to focus my mind but these became less necessary as the week progressed. There is a profound sense of connectedness. After a few more days food tastes richer, the sky is bluer and you become intimately aware of everything around you. I could feel the wind in the trees, feel the trees as they bent to the wind. I found myself wondering what a large boulder in the midst of our cabins felt like as it sat there through the centuries watching the world change around it. There was a Blue Heron rookery adjoining the conference grounds and we saw many large birds over the course of the week. Normally they fly in a fairly straight line but one evening they were swooping and diving on the evening breeze that blew in from Puget Sound. The wind in their feathers blew through my mind and I found myself dancing on the wind along with them. This probably sounds overly poetic but its the best I can do to explain my sesshin experience and why it matters in my life. Over time my involvement in the dharma, not just meditation but the full spectrum of Buddhist practice, has had a deep and lasting effect on my personal priorities.

This was my third sesshin in a year but was a bit longer than the others. Since the first few days are the hardest I had a much deeper experience this time. I suspect this will become an annual retreat for me as long as it continues (this was their 13th year). I started my affair with Buddhism in the late 90's but after 10 years of practice I feel like I'm just getting started. Still I choose to enter the silence. This despite the pain associated with Zazen and the intensive schedule that potentially challenges the ego. Why? Read the above and breathe deeply... in and out... I respectfully urge you who study the mystery, don't waste time.

Thanks for listening