The latest uncomfortable experience: a silent Zen Buddhism meditation retreat based on the Japanese samurai model that originated in the 12th century. I’m not a big meditator. Twenty minutes of sitting or so is about my limit, nor have I attended anything that resembles the situation of Uma Thurman in Kill Bill 2 where she gets her ass handed to her by Pai Mei in that rice bowl scene. (Do yourself a favor and re-watch that pearl. This is often how I envisioned myself during this retreat, though no one was yelled at in Japanese.)
Four days of hours of meditation, no eye contact (eyes were directed downward at a 45-degree angle at all times), no speaking, and a schedule from 6 am to 9 pm daily was likely to be an uncomfortable experience to some degree. There is a lot to say about this one, and here are some highlights.
A little context: Chinese Buddhist monks imported Zen philosophy to Japan around the 12th century. Zen Buddhism relies on the tenets of finding inner calm, and many samurai followed a code called Bushido which taught followers to accept that brutal or intense death at any moment was likely. A lot of the teachings surrounded contemplating the impermanence of all material bodies via seated meditation and pondering of the koan—paradoxical statements or questions—as practices leading to enlightenment.
I had to “apply” to attend such a retreat. The intake form asked a dozen or so questions about my practice, my level of meditation experience, my teachers, etc. Pretty much as an “NA” application for me, though I made a point to showcase other experiences I was doing in other areas to push myself. The organizer said my application was “courageous,” which may have been a foreshadowing remark.
The “retreat” itself was held on a desert compound of sorts, quite barren but pretty. It’s off a winding, twisting dirt road where you KNOW any last glimmer of a reception bar was lost miles ago. I’ve always preferred the desert to forest and ocean, so I was quite fine with this.
Most of the retreat goers, about 30 of us in total, were in their 60s and 70s. The teacher herself was 78 and had been practicing for more than 40 years. She was rad and witty, a former world-acclaimed musician who found life to be a let down after such accomplishment and industry fame. There were two dudes in the bunch who looked about my age, but I quickly deduced they knew what the hell was going on. Once again, I thought, here am as the ignorant but eager novice so obvious an outlier that I would have hardly seemed sillier banging a gong to Rihanna’s Work. Well. There I was.
The schedule was 6 am to 9 pm daily and ran precisely on time. Ironic to some degree, considering the “being” nature of everything. Some “reminders” were given the first evening on the bowing practices (8 or so before you actually sat on your pillow), meal practice, walking meditation, work practice (I was cutting bushes), duties such as dishwashing (I was on breakfast), etc. There was a 5-page document emailed before with all the rules, as well as the chants. The teachers did in fact talk but sparsely except for the one on one time and daily 20 minute or so talk. Oryoki was perhaps the most strict. It’s a meditative form of eating that is formal and follows strict guidelines on chants, utensil use (a rubber spatula is one element), pace, and so forth. I messed up ALL the time, splattering my damn bowl of water onto my mucked up napkin, putting my chopsticks on the wrong bowl, giving myself too much oatmeal, and finding that NOT having an absolutely clean bowl (hence the spatula) was notably unacceptable, and so forth. The food was bland and included oatmeal, brown rice, vegetable broth, and every other brown, boring food that makes you ponder how any monk could be rotund.
A couple of internal reflections: It is odd to share a room with 4 women and NOT make eye contact, NOT have small talk, and not have any otherwise “normal” social practices. The lack of eye contact seems a bit cold at first, but it keeps you from being distracted, searching faces to validate your shock, thought, opinion, etc. That was something-to note how often we look at someone’s face to read their thoughts and emotions. None of that here. I have no idea what anyone thought about anything, but the teachers did tell me on their one on ones that several attendees have been long-time practitioners and have done these retreats for decades. Chanting, reading out loud at a snail’s pace, and bowing nearly 200 times were odd at first too, but I quickly viewed these as normal by sheer and uninterrupted repetition. This is how cults must seem “normal” to participants-you just get used to it so easily and then start to think things such as, “Wait. Why wasn’t there the THRID bell followed by the chime? What happened, bell lady? That is NOT the practice, according to the nine other times. Where is that handbook?!”
Sometimes I was bored out of my mind. I swear the time monitor bell person FORGOT to check the clock on numerous occasions. But then, I caught myself thinking, “So? Where do you need to be?” The answer is nowhere but there. Hell, I can’t even get a text message. There is no “to do.” I am much a “to do”-er than a “to be”-er so I had to sink into this thought A LOT, really by force of the situation. You get to observe a lot. I realized how dense silence is, how varied breath can sound from other beings, how people’s elbows or necks or arms creaked, including my knees. Sometimes the time flew by, as I would be deep into a thought or I notion that would keep thinking, and thinking, and thinking about. This was a nice escape in some ways. There are rare times we can spend 5 hours thinking about one topic. My mind seems to be pretty decent at this, and I suppose it’s unique that I’m not ping-ponging around thoughts constantly. One time I decided I would think about my foot, and for an hour, I thought about my foot and how big and weird it was. Also, I have a few little blond hairs on one of my toes. I thought about Orlando, AI, the analogy of us all bobbing around the surface of the “ocean,” so afraid to dive deep even though the water can be calmer within.
It can be a bit painful to sit so long, and many people told me about this. I shifted around here and there, wondering how 72-year-old Robert or whomever across from me was hanging in his perfectly poised lotus position pretty much till sundown. I was a wimpy whippersnapper, apparently. One hard practice was 30 minutes of direct eye contact with a fellow participant. (This was the one case where eye contact was permitted.) When was the last time you looked at the eyeball of a stranger for that long, with a neutral, disengaged face? I almost laughed at one point. My partner just stayed there, peering through me, unperturbed and uninterested like a corpse with an open eye. You eventually forget a full human is in front of you, looking back in the abyss of your pupil.
This was not fun nor exciting experience, but it was good to kick in the butt that pushed discipline, quietude, appreciation for detail, and respect for barren, stripped-down reflection. Recommended.
