First Sesshin
Peter Allen, Shodan, October 2005
Sesshin — seemed like a good idea. Three-day break in a French city, do some sitting, take in the local atmosphere... why not? Flights booked, sorted.
Then there was the preparation. Saturday, from 0930, Zazen for the day, sitting, walking, sitting, tea, sitting, sitting, lunch, sitting, walking, sitting, sitting, sitting... uh oh!!
More frantic preparations, only two weeks to go. Clothes — warm clothes, underwear, layers, thermals. Sitting at home — an hour a day. OK, 40 minutes. Not enough time, 30 minutes will have to do. One last 15 minutes...
Then suddenly, the time to depart arrived. The journey was quite pleasant actually, manageable. Strasbourg is cold in January, but with friendly hosts and a good sleeping bag, a night in the dojo is fine, and the following morning there is plenty of preparation to keep us busy.
We began at midday, with introductions and some basic instruction from Genjo Marinello Osho. I was comforted that this seemed reasonably familiar, from the Saturday Zazen of some weeks earlier.
And then, a first faux pas... somehow I had missed the message — no socks to be worn while practising — and ended up in kinhin, walking in line around the Dojo/Zendo, very obviously the only wearer of (thick, very warm) socks (thanks to Ken for discreetly pointing this out... and I was thinking everyone was just a little hardier — or less well prepared — than me!). I quickly removed them as we returned to our zafu, and so, we began Zazen.
One of my major apprehensions was soon dispelled — boredom. It's amazing how many thoughts can bubble up in a 30-second, let alone a 30-minute, period when the mind is given a chance to see them, and there are plenty of other things happening that demand attention — the early morning dog barking (I swear he was asking for keisaku), the pain in the back, the pain in the knee, the disappearance of a foot from the realm of the senses, fellow sesshinites, sitting unperturbed like black (and some white) rocks in a Zen garden — how are they doing that?
Zazen was interspersed with brief rest periods — a chance to stretch sore limbs — and kinhin. Then there were the (formal) tea and meal breaks, sutras, dharma talks, dokusan (dharma interviews).
Pain became a big issue, and began to define the length of a sit — that was a long one, that was a bit shorter, not necessarily in minutes, but more in how much my mind was involved in trying to fight it, ignore it, rationalize it... and accompanied by worryingly homicidal thoughts, and the more obvious 'just get up and walk out!' This came to a head during the first dharma talk. Fired by the inspirational determination of the masters of old, I adopted the mental attitude of aggression and determination to fight the increasingly intense pain from my back. This clearly inappropriate approach led to complete defeat, with a faint head and a sweat soaked body, and a complete loss of posture, slumped forward in search of oxygen and blood. The short break before the next Zazen allowed me to recover my composure, but the future looked grim.
There were words from Genjo Osho-san, however, to help and encourage and show the way — simple advice during Zazen, the lessons from earlier masters during the dharma talks, and the personal dharma interview — and the keisaku to awaken and drive out the tensions. Then, as well, was the tacit support of my fellow sitters, all working in some way with the same stuff.
Inexplicably, from the confusion of thoughts and lack of thoughts came a few insights... strangely, from questions that seem to arrive with a pre-packaged answer. What is pain? — just a message from one part of the body to the brain (and actually, no damage is being done). How attached am I to this pain? Well, now that I have a choice, not very... I'll let it be, thank you!
I knew that the last half-day would be a challenge — because it would be easy to relax with the end in sight, and lose the hard-won focus of the previous day. Although only half a day, it would still be more sitting in one go than I had done before this Sesshin started. But I was becoming familiar with the routine now, and some way in, the rain began drumming on the roof, an elemental percussion to aid our focus. And so, occasionally, between the drowsiness and the attitudes, and the thoughts, there were moments of being in the present, moments of just sitting, just breathing, moments of truth.
The end came... one moment followed by another. Maybe with some relief (a clearly identifiable impostor of an attitude), but mostly with a thought of gratitude to those who had brought us to and led us through this remarkable practice.
As we stepped out from the strictures of practice to the everyday, to clean and tidy, to reflect and share experiences, I knew I should have been exhausted from three days of deceptively physical practice and not enough sleep. But it was the opposite — there was energy, and clarity; a crispness in the air, a lightness in the sky.
It is easy and inevitable to analyse, to try to cling on to such a fundamental experience, to attach to non-attachment, and so lose it. But I was able to reflect, over the following weeks and months — it turns out that the one day of Zazen in the run up to Sesshin (with as much other sitting as can be levered into the routine of the day) was excellent preparation, both to have an idea of the form and procedure, and as a wake up. Ultimately, though, nothing can prepare you for yourself!
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