It felt such a privilege to be attending the retreat with Shifu. I couldn't make the effort to go to New York, but he had come here! And yet a retreat is just a retreat. Really it was like a solitary retreat, as I just isolated myself from the environment and continued my practice.
I came to the retreat feeling that I wanted to be there, and John wanted me to be there in particular to confirm my experience in retreat at Maenllwyd two years ago. Whilst both John and I were both certain this experience had "seen the nature", he had modestly suggested that I should have this checked by Shifu. Also relating to this was another matter. I have never discussed my experiences with anyone other than John for fear of confusing and misleading others. Reading "Ox Herding at Morgan's Bay", it seemed to me that perhaps I had reached the fourth picture and should be helping guide others, but I did not want to claim this falsely. This seemed an opportunity to enquire into this, as I had been feeling increasingly frustrated by holding back.
During the last three days of my previous retreat I had had a lot of backache, and over the last year I have been trying to adjust my posture with only limited success. I was terrified that I was going to have a lot of backache again, and I did, right from the first day. During the second morning I had an out of body experience, as though I was leaving my body to avoid the pain. I felt to be hovering at head level between me and the person in front of me. But feeling the backache made me know that I was more in my body than his, and I returned.
During interview I asked Shifu about posture and backache. He just replied that it wasn't a problem. I felt stunned. Here was I suffering all this backache and pain, and this supposedly compassionate man just said that it didn't matter! And yet I knew that he was right - we all have to have pain sometimes, why not me as well, and he meant that it wasn't a problem for my practice, which is all that matters on retreat. In fact it was helpful for my practice, as I was using pain as the method, and having virtually no wandering thoughts. It also gave rise to some compassion for the pain of others - it is not only I who suffers.
That afternoon, after the walking meditation, I felt extremely focused and my mind was virtually empty as I drank my cup of tea. I went straight to the zendo and sat before anyone else. My eyes were so fixed on one spot on the wall that everything went black, except for the slight outline of the people in front of me - I had hardly noticed them arriving - probably just a physiological effect due to eye fixation. But there was virtually no vision or sound, perhaps a sort of samadhi, and then it suddenly ended on an out breath, and as I breathed out it was as though I had spread over the while world. From this position I knew that everything was in great harmony and peace, that good and evil were just points of view, but from the "total overview" there is no good or evil. People don't know this, and therefore they suffer, but my backache had now lessened as I opened myself up to others suffering, yet knowing that really there is no suffering. After this I still had some backache from time to time, but nothing like as bad as the first day and a half. With this I developed a strong feeling of respect for others, and a lessening of self importance, and this led to repentance for all the harm I have done in the past. A very humbling experience, and I felt very small, and more in touch with everything. You cannot enjoy the world if you don't let it in, and letting it in means letting it all in, suffering as well. To do that requires the possibility of accepting others suffering, and your own, but then you find that the suffering doesn't harm you!
I don't remember much of the third day. I remember Shifu talked about repentance, in tune with the way I had felt the day before, and I think this evoked a little more repentance and also some further understanding of giving.
On the fourth morning - early morning meditation - with an in breath the whole world flowed into me. During the morning service the Heart Sutra struck home - "no aging and death" - and past and future collapsed into NOW - all time and space were in me now, there is no time and space other than here and now. Returning to awareness of my surroundings there was chanting, and the beauty was so great that I collapsed into tears.
I have had many such experiences over the years, and have learned to just let them pass, and did not intend to mention them to Shifu. At interview he asked me about my experience two years ago. I could hardly remember any details to tell him. It had become something of an obstruction, trying to re-live it, and so I had put it out of my head so completely that I just couldn't remember anything worthwhile. Because of this he understandably would not confirm it. I wasn't sure whether this was a denial (meaning if it was genuine I couldn't forget) or just a lack of confirmation. He asked me if I had had any experiences on this retreat and I told him some of the above. He encouraged me by saying that I had good karmic roots, but I felt very despondent that I had let John down by not letting Shih fu confirm that John's judgement was correct, and that Shifu might therefore think that his judgement of John was incorrect.
I tried to remember some other details and did remember just a couple of points, but it seemed it may be even less convincing if I just presented a couple of unimportant details. Why couldn't I remember? Was I wrong? Was John wrong? If my experience was worthwhile why hadn't I changed enough for Shifu to see? Conversely any experience that doesn't have an effect on my life is nothing more than a daydream. Was there anything in Chan/Zen after all, or was it just a game? I felt that if I couldn't remember anything, all I could do was throw myself into the practice and see what happened, see if this was real.
That afternoon I had listened more carefully to the repeated instructions for the direct contemplation. Previously I had just gazed around the landscape without really fixing my eye. This time I lay down and stared at a stone on the stream bed. This didn't fix my gaze and it raised to see a patch of the spiky grass in the stream bed. I knew I shouldn't see it as grass, and I saw just shapes and patterns - the vertical green, brown tipped grass, swaying in the breeze with sunlight on it and shadows of the stalks, also horizontal shadows from some bent leaves. An abstract moving grid pattern of colour, light and dark. I realised that whilst I was not seeing it as grass, I was making the pattern with my own perception. What I was seeing was not what was there, but my own thoughts reflected back at me as though there was a mirror, and all that I was seeing was my own thoughts reflected in the mirror. With that all thoughts stopped, the grass vanished and so did the mirror and everything. After some time a fly landed on the grass and broke the spell. But I knew that during that time there had been nothing there, including no me. The grass had been a gateway into emptiness - looking at the grass I had looked into emptiness:
"To know all the Buddhas
Of the past, present and future
Perceive that Dharmadhatu nature
Is all created by the mind."
The evening ceremony verse came to mind. I had created the grass with my mind. I looked around, but could not believe that I had also created the valleys and trees.
In the early morning meditation (fifth morning) the evening verse came again to me. It was not my mind but the mind. I could believe that the mind created valleys and trees and with that everything disappeared into emptiness - trees, valley, self, others, saving others, the mind/God itself - all was emptiness. Absolutely nothing remained. There was no fear of leaving sentient beings unsaved, there was no-one to save, and no-one to do any saving. No problem! It was like waking from a dream, it was so clear and real. There could be no doubt.
These were not overwhelming experiences but they corresponded with what I had found before. I felt that even though they were not big experiences, I should check them with Shifu. If they were not genuine then I should know that I was deceiving myself. But even so I felt that I was taking him only a tiny taste. I was surprised when he immediately accepted and confirmed them, based I think not only on the descriptions themselves, but also on the clarity which he said he observed in me, and on which he had commented previously.
With this all my doubts, anxieties about letting John down, the urge to try and achieve something, all settled and I became very calm. In the afternoon, again looking at a patch of grass near the stream. I lost all sense of scale. Whatever filled my awareness was the whole world, whether a fly, a three inch patch of grass, a view of the whole valley, or a thought of the whole cosmos. Each of these in their turn was at that time everything that there was. In the evening I entered a deep stillness, especially during the evening lecture and the meditation after. At lights out I sat meditating a little longer. I was all but unaware of what must have been a considerable movement and commotion around me as people moved themselves, lights were put out, someone sat in front of me, but none of this affected me. I realised that this stillness/silence contains all space, all beings, all time, and that it is empty.
The following morning I realised that I was a little restless. During wood sawing I realised that I wanted to have more experiences of silence! The restlessness was the wanting. Realising that the wanting was an obstruction to what was wanted, I just dropped it. Suddenly there was only wood sawing, and that in itself was perfection, nothing else to want. When sawing, sawing is all and complete. The work period finished and I started walking around the yard. There was only walking, and that was wonderful. I was not there at all, there was just walking. No attachment to one state or the other. Just total acceptance, flowing.
