A retreat report – Investigating koans in the snow

The first week after coming back from retreat I finally rinsed the wash basin in the bathroom. For several months it waited for me to do it. I almost throw up by rinsing away hair and old grease clogging the pipe. However it was ok and not as difficult as I had visualised. 

This was my first koan retreat and I think the koan was supposed to let us see aspects of ourselves we attach to and helping us in the process of letting go. 

The retreat was a group of about 16 participants and two teachers. The retreat opened with a presentation of ourselves, I found it very respectful. I had hoped to continue practicing with the hua-tou “Wu”, however was asked by the teacher to choose a koan from the list and give it a try. I guess I didn’t really understand the nature of the retreat I had signed up for. However, letting the koan “How to step forward from a hundred foot pole” be my company for the retreat was a new way to practice. The koan was also supposed to illuminate aspects in me triggered by it. I think of it all as a “See what happens”. 

In interview on the first day the teacher told me the koan possibly had other sides to it than I could see at the moment. Investigate. I picked that particular koan because I felt it being where I am today, how to carry on, what is my practice? I saw many subtle and shy thought patterns connected to it one after another. Now a week later I can almost not recall them at all. But one reflection lasts: The koan felt silent and not interested in me. Was it turning its back on me? Have I been neglected and have I been neglecting people and myself in the same way? What do I do if neglected? Or am I just over analysing and looking for psychological insights? Back to investigating “How to go forward from the top of a hundred foot pole?” 

It made me a few of times experience actual vertigo. Something I often experience as I fall asleep at night: Being several kilometres up on a high pole among clouds, in agony about falling down. “What about if you fall?” the teacher asked. 

To meet the teachers in interview felt like the most important practice in this retreat, to be myself and not needing to protect myself. It has become my main practice in retreat. To ask for help and to be vulnerable. How to take a step forward into the unknown? Saying ridiculous things. It’s of great help to me as a way of experimenting with fear. Through my whole practice life I’ve always dreaded seeing teachers because of all possible reasons, I guess I felt judged. Pretending being myself. Relations.

The communication exercise with a partner during the two first days where we asked and was asked “What does the koan tell you?” was for me mainly again an exercise about directly relating to another human. To choose and to be chosen by an unknown person and listening and explaining, seeing my reactions was again for me the greatest value in the exercise. Wanting to fill the five minutes with clever speech. Let’s try sit silent when nothing more to say, will I be turned away from? 

I got to be timekeeper on the last day. I noticed this on the first night as I browsed through the schedule and work assignments. “Will I make it?” was my reaction though I’ve done it many times before. How to take another step forward with that? By doing it. We perhaps take another step forward by taking another step, without visualising how it will be or might turn out. What is a mistake? What is the worst that can happen? I’m aiming at perfectionism or avoiding so called mistakes? Why can I accept others mistakes and see them as just normal, even human and charming and still not wanting myself to make them? Take another step.

We did a lot of shovelling in work periods due to a couple of days of heavy snowing. It was a hard job to dig out the road and as I shovelled I thought about this, how I got more tired by thinking about how much work we had to do rather than just steadily shovelling. The great experience was doing it together: Everyone working in her own pace and style-and finally the work was done. The sun shone on all the beautiful white and us beautiful retreat participants. I miss you all.

I am too concerned about awakening and really need to remember to focus on practice in front of me and not waste my time. It became a habit from early feelings of being disconnected and now experiencing aging and fear of death. I hope to be free. Taking the forward step is to really look close and ask and not know. Dear Tradition and Teachers: I prostrate myself to the ground.