There is no beginning and no end to it, the Sesshin Soto Chan style began on my 49th birthday and ended on my 59th; ten years of ordinary living in one week. So much tension and pain has left my mind-body, and is still leaving me, falling away after another three days. There is much silent stillness now and longer periods of being without thinking, just not habitual and unnecessary stirring this mind-body anywhere near as much as before. I am far more supple and relaxed, together and potent now.
Years of grief and sadness, around me like a wet blanket, obscured my heart and courage. I became aware of this after the Master asked me why, after so many years of practice and working within four different traditions with many wonderful experiences, I wasn't confident. This was day four. I had felt sadness in the background of most of my life and this was expanded with grief more recently with the deaths of my mother, my Master Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and my father, in a period of one and a half years. These three people I had built my life with, upon and around. After becoming aware of this deep grief around my heart, it began to move to allow a power, a glow, a fire of courage to emerge into this living experience. This was particularly mirrored by my two jobs of cleaning the wet shit from the thunderbox elsans and laying and preparing the fire for the evening teaching.
Day one was adjusting to a very different lifestyle, rising at 4.00am from the hay barn bedroom after a cold night with little sleep; revealing, interesting and exciting. As we moved our sleepy bodies in the dark pre-morning, exercising with a gentle and direct Chinese monk Guo Yen Hse, my mind also stirred; after a couple more days I was able to watch this happen. My practice is the Soto Shiken-taza, "just sitting" method. Shifu encouraged us to sit comfortably and relax and use the method we were accustomed to. His method of teaching, that is responding to our real needs, was direct, simple and kind. I had arrived at the sesshin with a cold and Shifu asked me if I was OK sitting by the cold window, in a very ordinary and gentle way. The rule of silence let the practice deepen. Right from the beginning everybody seemed to do their best. This encouraged me to keep at it and on the afternoon of the second day, with Shifu sitting right behind me, the intense ongoing movie-dramas of my mind stopped. I felt a strong focused presence in the zendo and as time stopped too, I was sitting in eternity.
After the second night most of us seemed to sleep well and we acclimatised to a better degree to the schedule. The meditation was continuous for the six and a half days, with yoga stretching and massage and periods of fast and slow walking in between the sitting sessions. It soon became apparent that the tension and pain in my mind was becoming conscious, manifested with associated thoughts and feelings in my physical body. We all experienced and faced our pain and vexations that we had created in the past and by facing and repenting them we let them go. We made vows not to create more pain and vexations in ourselves and others and to undo and realise that which is still there for eternity. This we did each day in the morning and evening services. This is also called Taking the Precepts.
About half way through the retreat, after we had been watching our body-mind, I had become more aware of the source of my thinking. Shifu, our Master and guide through this strange terrain introduced us to the practice of direct contemplation. This is to look and/or listen directly, without thinking, to our surroundings and selves together. I found it had a profound effect on me and still does now, deepening my practice immeasurably, changing my life, bringing my ego-self-craving further towards its death, letting me be more still, silent and bright in this ongoing living flow; like the stream, it is changing, still, bright and empty with living power emanating from it. During a period of looking and listening directly and without thinking with a stream, out of its emptiness came the words "go home and teach." This became a natural koan, or question, for me and still is now.
On the sixth day, during my third interview with the Master, after expressing that I was experiencing the oneness of everything, the bright shining emptiness of everything and the living power, joy and compassion in everything beyond words, he suggested that I needed to raise the doubt again and again. To do this I could use the koan "Why was I born?" I said that I knew why I was born - "to save all sentient beings", and he said this was true for all Buddhists. I now continue with this koan. I thanked him for coming to be with us and he thanked me for coming too. Partly because it was the last day, I was able to relax further and experienced love rising up through my body and out to another, it was as though I was embracing everything and everything was embracing me - although this is a description of something beyond words.
From the beginning to the end of this sesshin I was given permission to "withdraw" and this was one of the gifts that I let myself receive. As well as obsessive and habitual thinking, deep feelings of anger, hatred, resentment, guilt, shame, fear, jealousy, desire, wonder, bliss and many others arose through this being - all fuel for the fire.
To the extent that I "go home", my true nature is born right now and its ordinary living response is the only true purpose in being here and is the teaching. As Shifu said to me - "it's enough" - there is nothing else to look or strive for. Thank you.
