How beautiful this practice of Zen retreat we call sesshin. A few days pass that hold the fullness of a month of richly lived life. To slow way way down, to calmly see our shadows and our brightness, to experience a range from grief to harmony – all gifts of sitting still and mindful activity. My teacher, Kyogen, joined us at the end of this last retreat. During our closing remarks, he said, it’s like an image he recently saw – where a glass box what put over a fish in a lake, so you could see it clearly, something always there that normally escapes us. So sesshin is an artificial arrangement to see something clearly, experience it in the gut, but the ritual of sesshin is not meant to be a way of life – we return to taking care of families, work, rest and play.
As practitioners of Zen, we integrate this awareness with movement and it in turn transforms our lives, moment to moment and touches not only our own hearts but those around us. Being in contact with each participant, I am struck once again by the good medicine that this practice of retreat is – how each person receives what they need without having to craft it deliberately. No adjustment to the medication needed….30 mg’s of mindful sweeping and a double dose of zazen. We all get what we need. It just happens, sesshin just happens when we can settle the mind that is busy busy busy doing doing doing. The retreat leaders are no exception – we are busy busy busy busy getting things arranged so we can slow down. But over time, the body of the long time practitioner knows the drill, and drops quickly into its place of receptivity and pointed presence.
Sesshin is not an easy practice by any means, we face all our struggles there – physical and emotional discomfort without the usual coping strategies, self consciousness, obsessions, boredom and restlessness. This is why we do it together and support one another. But what emerges when one stays the course is unprecedented in many of our modern settings – and the preciousness of that is what fuels continued efforts in practice. At some point, you just have to take the plunge. It is hard to find the time to come to sesshin, but if you can, consider the experiment of attending some extended sitting, some crafted glass box held in the water for a brief time to catch a fish.
Palms together,
Seido
Participants at the Interdependence and the Four Elements Retreat requested this poem to be posted:
To be of the Earth is to know
The restlessness of being a seed
The darkness of being planted
The struggle toward the light
The pain of growth into the light
The joy of bursting and bearing fruit
The love of being food for someone
The scattering of your seeds
The decay of the seasons
The mystery of death
And the miracle of birth.
– John Soos
Seido’s version:
To take up the path of Zen is to know
The restlessness of being a seed
The darkness of being planted
The struggle toward the light
The pain of growth into the light
The joy of bursting and bearing fruit
The love of being food for someone
The scattering of your seeds
The decay of the seasons
The mystery of death
And the miracle of birth.
