Rochester Zen Sesshin at Chapin Mill: What Zen Would Be Like if Zen Was Established in the West

July 22, 2012 By 25 Comments

Just back from sesshin with Bodhin Kjolhede and crew at the Rochester Zen Center’s beautiful Chapin Mill site. So this here’s part of my ongoing travelogue of sesshin on planet Earth.

Two words: Wonderful! Wonderful!

And for now just a couple quick observations, a complaint, and an exhortation.

First, the Chapin Mill facility is the finest for sesshin that I’ve seen, including in Japan. It was designed with this specific function in mind and it just flows. Even though there were ~65 people, for example, I didn’t ever have to wait to pee – not to be underestimated in profound significance when practicing the Way.

Second, I was surprised and impressed with how intelligently Roshi Kapleau adapted Soto Zen form. Attention to detail and spirit were strikingly available throughout the sesshin day. And night.

All the basic principles were there in how we moved together but simplified and focused. The liturgy, for example, is based on the three services all done within the traditional Soto morning service but tweaked in length (shortened), spread through two services instead of one, and with some substitutions (e.g., instead of the “Universal Gateway,” “Affirming Faith in Mind”).

Bodhin’s talks seemed to flow from and heartfully express his long intimacy with this style of practice and were steady, smart, on-point and with occasional flashes of summer lightning.

Now the complaint – no coffee. At least you could warn a brother! Maybe I missed that one in the rules. After the headache wound down, though, I enjoyed being decaffeinated. Really. And then asked the person giving me a ride to the airport to detour to the nearest coffee shop so that I could reboot the manic neural network.

And as for the exhortation, well, here’s another fine practice center, a mature practice community (with a good group of youngsters too – a few who not only run to dokusan but also run back to the zendo afterwards), and an excellent teacher. If you’re still thinking that you might want to get serious about your practice, enough already. Stop thinking about it and do it. Click here.

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  • http://arielpork.blogspot.com Austin

    Thanks for the report! Sounds great. I have a fantasy of getting a bunch of people together and going coast to coast, visiting Zen centers along the way, led by a teacher who leads sesshins at each temple we stop at. Maybe it would spark other teachers to do the same, and when I arrived back at my home temple, there would be a group headed our way.

  • Bryan

    Glad to hear you had a ‘Wonderful, wonderful’ sesshin. It is a rare opportunity indeed to attend sesshin at Chapin Mill.

    WRT coffee (or lack thereof)–agreed. I have to begin to decaffeinate myself about two weeks before sesshin.

    Hands palm-to-palm,

    Bryan

  • http://www.openbuddha.com Al Jigong Billings

    No coffee? No tea either? :-)

    • doshoport

      A little weak tea sometimes…and with that you could employ the justification/rationalization of Bodhidharma inventing it and all!

      • http://www.openbuddha.com Al Jigong Billings

        Wow… this just reinforces the masochism of Zen in a way (I’m only *mostly* joking.)

        I have a sleep disorder, which means I have a hard time sleeping and don’t sleep well. The normal sesshin schedule is already twice as hard on me, physically, as on most people I know. Throw in no caffeine or way of jiggering the sleep/wake cycle and the whole thing would just be hellish. (Not to mention multi-hour time shifts when one goes on retreat on the other end of the country.)

        Gah. Gimme a retreat where we go to bed at 11 or midnight and get up at seven or so. :-)

  • http://mettai.blogspot.com Mettai Cherry

    No Coffee = No Mettai

  • LRJ

    Coffee is served after the final sitting on the 7th night for those who dare to risk caffeine that late in sesshin. Next time, stay with us one more day!

  • Stephen Slottow

    “Gah. Gimme a retreat where we go to bed at 11 or midnight and get up at seven or so.” Yes! Yes! Yes! Look, there are morning people and night people. Sesshin’s designed for morning people. Without an early morning appointment, I’ll sleep until 9 or 930am. SOMEONE should give sesshin for night people: the first round’s at 10am and the last round ends at 2am.

    -sps

    • http://www.openbuddha.com Al Jigong Billings

      I agree. I’ve thought about doing a retreat like this before. Shift every four or six hours out.

  • Susan Rakow

    Yeah, it was a great sesshin. I was there too. But I decaffeinate myself slowly over a week’s time before going, like Bryan does. Then I wonder…why do I ratchet back up afterwards….and then I go back to work and the answer appears.

    A person CAN go to sleep at 9:30 and sleep until 4:10. which is almost 7 hours. Most adults don’t need more than that. And there are naptimes if you need them. No one at sesshin requires sleeplessness. Each person finds his or her own rhythm and it evolves over each day of sesshin and after many sesshins.

    • http://www.openbuddha.com Al Jigong Billings

      Susan, a lot of us, literally, have an internal clock that is shifted a number of hours in the nighttime direction or which is longer than 24 hours, so it naturally shifts later. I could look up the numbers but it is a substantial part of the population. On top of this, few people go to bed before 10:30 PM or so. When you arrive at a retreat, often in another timezone (for me, always one that is *later* than the one I live in) *and* they expect you to go to sleep three or so hours before you normally do and rise three or so hours before hand, it is murder. This is without throwing caffeine withdrawl and the like in.

      The fact that a number of people here have to comment on how they wean themselves off caffeine before the retreat in order to try to prepare (I bet they start trying to go to bed earlier too) should indicate that, not being agrarian monks of the 12th century but 21st century urbanites, maybe we should shift the schedule slightly.

      • doshoport

        Well, Al, I respectfully see it differently.
        I suspect really really few people are naturally into getting up at 4am and sitting all day. Imv, sesshin isn’t about getting our way. That is a huge take-away from intensive Zen practice – becoming strong AND soft, learning how to open the heart in the midst of stuff that isn’t our cup of tea – little stuff like no coffee (which I regret mentioning), getting hit with a stick, and then there’s always sickness/old age/death – which probably won’t ask if you’re a morning or evening person.
        Dosho

        • http://www.howtomediation.com Sean

          Yes – one could make a point that sitting is the process of learning how to be with what is – the good and the bad, the coffee and the n0-coffee, the health and the sickness. If we’re always handed what we expect at retreats, then we can miss some powerful lessons. I’m glad you were able to find the skillful response to the situation.

  • PaulRomaine

    Good posts, Dosho! There’s tremendous power of a shift from our choice-filled, electrified, air conditioned, caffeinated lives to a life with few choices. That aching knee or back, that caffeine headache, that annoying person next to me–what an opportunity to look into that suffering and the ways we bring it on. It’s why some teachers call sesshin a sacred space, in which we don’t have to fret about choices, but just inhabit it, suffering and all. I became a ‘morning person’ after my first sesshin, and I discovered the really deleterious effects caffeine had on my body. I’m still working on that other big addiction: being right.

  • http://greatcloudzen.org Myo Gak

    So… it’s okay to change *some* things from tradition (the liturgy, the number of times you’re allowed to eat in a day, etc.) but not other thing (when the alarm clock is set)?

    C’mon – teachers and retreat leaders adjust the logistics of retreats all the time, typically with the view of being beneficial for their sangha, or often even just convenience. And it’s clear Al isn’t saying “Hey, I’m a night person, you need to accommodate me, and let me sleep in!” This isn’t about “getting his way” – it’s about recognizing that there are realities at play in 21st century America that we’d frankly be silly to ignore.

    There’s nothing magical about 2am (when I’d have to get up for Gyo) or 3am, or 3:30 or 4 or… whenever. It’s about the opportunity for prolonged diligent practice, and honestly it sounds like a very compelling case has been made that if one were to adjust the schedule forward four hours (not shorten it, mind you) that many folks would likely be better able to engage in that diligent practice (which was supposed to be the point, right?).

    Just food for thought.

    Myo Gak

  • Stephen Slottow

    I rather like the idea of sickness, old age, and death asking me if I’m a morning or evening person. I’ll still go ahead and get sick, old, and die, but it WOULD be courteous.

  • Steve

    Now I’ll know if I want coffee at chapin mill to bring my own! ;)

  • http://www.prairiewindzen.org Nonin Chowaney

    Sometimes it takes a while for karma to mature, but we always get what we deserve. Many years ago, we began a one-month practice period at Hokyo-ji monastery with Katagiri-roshi, and the tenzo (kitchen head) announced that he was not serving coffee during the practice period. I stalked up to K-roshi’s cabin and announced what was happening, and he pulled out a huge bottle of instant coffee and said: “Here, you can have some of mine; Dosho told me he wasn’t providing coffee, so I brought my own.” DOSHO?? Yes, Dosho. The same Dosho who complained above about no coffee at Chapin Mill! It takes a while, but karma does mature!

    • doshoport

      Well, I thought of you at Chapin, old friend, and knew you’d be getting a kick outta it!
      Dosho

      • http://www.prairiewindzen.org Nonin Chowaney

        I couldn’t wait to tell that story!! Thanks for the opportunity.

        Hands palm-to-palm,

        Nonin

        • doshoport

          Yeah, I knew you were waiting in the weeds. How many times you gotta tell it? Haven’t I suffered enough for my youthful folly!?

          • http://www.prairiewindzen.org Nonin Chowaney

            I tell it every chance I get! My favorite aspect of the story is that Katagiri-roshi knew about no coffee and brought a huge supply for himself. None of the rest of us knew. To your credit, or maybe because K-roshi advised you (?), you lifted the ban after people complained!

            Aside from all of our youthful and beginner follies, those were wonderful times, weren’t they?

  • scott

    I lived at the Rochester Zen Center a long time ago – is the kyosaku still mandatory? They would whomp us until our shoulders were bruised, and hit us more if we asked for less.

    • doshoport

      Scott,
      The kyosaku isn’t mandatory and although it is used a lot. The monitors give the stick to whom it seems appropriate – there’s no asking or not. At the same time, seems that the monitors are open to feedback from practitioners and modify their strikes accordingly. There wasn’t much whomping in the sesshin I attended. Seemed from my seat that I was among those who were struck the hardest, especially by one monitor, but had no bruising. It is important for people to know that the stick is used there so that they can make an informed choice should that be something that activates them. Thanks for bringing it up.
      Dosho

      • scott

        Dosho –

        Thanks for the response. I left that group and have been with the Diamond Sangha ever since, along with some Soto stuff (including Minnesota when Katagiri was there and after). I lived there for a few years and the mandatory kyosaku always seemed excessively harsh to me – in those days no one could opt out in sesshin and we were struck 4-5 times per round. Kyosakus even broke on people’s backs during sesshin. Now my home sangha has banished it altogether, which seems to me to go too far the other way, but what are you gonna do? Anyhow thanks for your post – while I still disagree with many of the harsh methods once used there (public “ego reduction” sessions, etc) I remain grateful to them for teaching me to sit.