Great Vow - After 2 1/2 Weeks

My time here has been well spent. Zen practice has been simply fulfilling. Each day brings new challenges, yet new insights.

The entire community - abbots, senior and novice priests, long and short-term residents, and occasional visitors - creates a nurturing environment for investigation into life's deepest questions: who am I? what's my purpose? what's permanent and impermanent in life?

Personally, I have already begun to develop greater awareness of my body, my own behavioral and thought patterns, and most importantly, the simple joy of just being. At the monastery we spend a lot of time working and reflecting on our lives, but we also spend a lot of time just sitting, just working, just walking, just listening . . . The schedule is intended to give the individual sufficient time to focus on just one activity. About half of the day is spent in silence so that we can focus on what's in front of us: our food, our toilet, our bed, our emotion, our opinion, our open awareness into wider space.

Contrary to many people's assumptions about meditation, Zen practice is not about disengagement from the world, but 24/7 engagement through opening the senses, the mind, and the heart. It's not about about sensory deprivation or going somewhere else; it's about letting it in and staying right where you are. It's about what's here. In Zen, we're constantly encouraged to ask of our own experience, 'what's here?' 'What stays?' The remarkable thing is how easily most of my experiences changed or passed away when I truly paid attention to them.

I've also been surprised at how much fun I'm having! The other people here are a lot of fun to hang out with and talk to. A lot of the senior practitioners are kind, wise, etc. but they're also really clever and witty. I think it's because they've spent so much time paying attention to the present moment that they can crack a joke on the spot. Also, humor is a desperately needed relaxant to the lifestyle of constant work and meditation. There isn't a lot of free time, but just enough to play a quick game of basketball or sit down with a friend and drink coffee. I've found that I don't really desire that much entertainment when I'm fully present with the entertainment I'm given. Often, I think I'm caught in the opposite cycle: constantly desiring more entertainment, while I'm not paying attention to the joys in front of me.

As for work, I've been spending most of my time helping a regular volunteer build a greenhouse. It's been really nice to direct my mind on some kind of project. Consequently though, I have lots of images of screws and bolts come up in meditation! One time, I fell asleep during meditation and dreamed that I was walking down the side of a mountain with these 6 foot screws drilled into the side!

The screwy dream doesn't even begin to touch the highs and lows of sitting zazen (Zen meditation): the pain, the ecstasy, the hallucinations, the vivid present moment, the sheer dull boredom, the list goes on . . . Teachers emphasize that, in zazen, we must let these states come and go without getting stuck to one in particular, no matter how many times it repeats over and over again. Sounds easy, right? That's another point of Zen practice; the most profound spiritual teachings are the simple ones we already know, but haven't taken the time to fully realize all the way to our bones. It really is about just letting go, about just sitting and being with whatever happens.

Well, I go into sesshin tomorrow, which is a weeklong silent retreat. Wish me luck and thanks for reading.

P.S. For those of you wondering, I'll be leaving the monastery on August 9 and returning to Kansas City August 17.