I came to the New York retreat unsure of what to expect. Earlier retreats at Maenllwyd had afforded powerful experiences and insight into dilemmas. In the back of my mind however I began to feel that in some way I was beginning to second guess the retreat process and was becoming too familiar with John's centre in Wales. I wanted to embark on a retreat with no idea of where I might come out at the end and with no comforting familiar surroundings.
In the months before the retreat I had neglected sitting meditation. Firstly on the pretext of being busy with my Phd thesis and then as the result of physical pain resulting from a back injury. I feel I had drifted quite far from a second original motivation to go on the retreat which was to try and explore prolonged meditation. In this sense therefore I felt ill prepared for the retreat. By the end of day one my legs hurt very badly. "Is there any one in physical pain" Shifu asked at the first evenings talk. I raised my hand. "Where?"
"All over!"
"I don't think all over." said Shifu pointing to his nose.
"OK, not all over." I conceded.
"Not yet!" replied Shifu, not entirely reassuringly.
The second day was a nightmare. By the end of every sitting session I felt like screaming at the timekeeper to ring the bell. All day long I was fighting pain. On one level it seemed important to do this even though I was beginning to realise that the pain was connected to my back injury. I felt that, from a habit of behaviour going deep into my past, I might be in some way using the pain as an excuse to drop out. In many ways I felt back in the school room or at home and ending up ill to be allowed to have my opinion about what I should do. In the last sitting of the afternoon I tried as hard as I could to sit properly and master the pain, to break down physical resistances and be comfortable with my own body. However, I had to stretch out my legs.
At this point I felt complete dejection. Shifu walked past and stopped to ask if I was in pain. I nodded feeling that I had let everyone down by not being adequately prepared. This feeling persisted until the following morning at breakfast when Shifu made a seemingly passing remark. "If you really are too sore to sit" he said, "just stretch out your legs". After finishing my chores I thought about this again and burst into tears. Suddenly it was as if I was feeling the weight of many struggles. It seemed that, with that one comment, Shifu just said "Its OK, you don't have to struggle". I hope I can live in this way a bit more in future and put down the necessity of being strong all the time.
This emotional outburst and the knowledge that I could stretch my legs or even, it transpired, ask for a chair, eased my pain considerably. Nonetheless, later that afternoon, and even with a chair, my legs and back were too sore to go on. I was filled with some trepidation when I walked up the hall towards Shifu to tell him this. Though I felt tremendous relief, I also wanted to crawl into a hole and have no-one talk to me. However next thing I was upstairs with Shifu, the other monks and a couple of my fellow retreatants all gravely discussing my condition. Shame complete I thought: to fail in front of everyone!
I continued to stay at the centre though with strict instructions to lie flat on my back. Though I had come all the way from Britain to lie in bed in silence, I nonetheless stopped tying to meditate in this position. In some way renouncing struggle seemed to imply just letting go of such attempts. Maybe I'm just making excuses but I really felt like being kind to myself. I felt that in some way I had lost a direction for my meditation and just wanted to rest.
After some thought, on the last night of the retreat I decided to go to the sharing of experiences. I was very glad of this as it afforded me the opportunity to thank the Sangha, to feel part of the retreat and to feel as if my retreat experiences were not worthless (come to think of it how could any experience be worthless).
As Shifu said to me during my interview, pain and failure are just as much practice as anything else. I can see this in terms of previous experiences in Zen but am still struggling to make sense of my own physical pain and sense of failure from this retreat. I do have a feeling of regret that in some way the retreat was a wasted opportunity as I could have done so much more. However, I did what I did and maybe its not so bad. I have also realised that both during the retreat and since I may have come across a direction for meditation; something I think I was in danger of loosing. I think that I was starting to seek a particular sort of experience at Maenllwyd. In this sense I suppose I have achieved one of my aims; having a retreat where what I learned was completely unpredictable. In some way this has brought me back to the beginners mind. As so often happens to me in Chan, now I feel I can really start.
