Back from Sesshin

I’m exhausted, glad to have gone and glad to be back from sesshin (a Japanese word that is usually translated as “to touch the heart/mind,” a Zen retreat…)

So far our Boundless Way Zen sangha has only been able to mount three-day retreats for our annual celebration of the Buddha’s enlightenment rather than the traditional seven (or, in some cases, eight days). And this was no different.

Nonetheless it was a wonderful experience.

As we had once again a new record for attendance (this time forty-six), we had to move out of our funky but generally loved site in Woodstock, Connecticut. This Rohatsu (as this annual early December retreat is called in the Japanese tradition) we gathered at Alyson’s Orchard just outside of Walpole, New Hampshire.

A powerful time. There is simply no way to convey to those who have not had the experience of sesshin or some similar discipline to describe how spending nine or so hours a day engaged in rigorous attention to the mind while sitting quietly in among companions doing the same thing. The body hurts. Sometimes powerfully. The mind aches. Sometimes powerfully. And such wonders are revealed…

There have been some shifts in the makeup of the group. Our three teachers and half the officers (who facilitate the retreat) identify as Unitarian Universalist Buddhists. But these days only about a quarter of the participants also do. Not, I hasten to add, because the UU Buddhists are dwindling. Actually they’re growing. Just not as fast as the others. While there is the odd Christian and unaffiliated Humanist, the majority seem to identify more or less as white bread (or, should I say white rice) Buddhists of the liberal Western kind.

I have no idea what that means or should mean, but it is an interesting statistic.

Against good counsel I opened my emails and immediately got sucked back into the conversations around how the owners of the E Sangha listserv are enforcing a pretty conservative theological orthodoxy. Which, it appears, now to have extended beyond the question of what’s an acceptable “Buddhist opinion” of rebirth to include, apparently, a rejection of non-Vinaya ordination models. (A truly arcane subject. But if you’re really interested you might look at my book that explores how Zen came West which addresses the subject in some depth. For a more scholarly and narrow exploration, here’s another book on the subject.)

In our sangha we have cautions at the end of sesshin as well as at the beginning. They tend to be a heads up regarding possible reentry difficulties. People are cautioned against making major life decisions right out of sesshin, avoid quitting jobs, changing spouses or partners, that sort of thing. A little less anxious making, but also cautioned against are deciding to shave one’s head, to get tattoos or to pierce various parts of one’s body. At least for a few days. Also,
folk are cautioned that if at all possible they don’t open their email right off.

Apparently this is not meant just for the novice.

Sadly, I felt obligated to add words on top of the words already written on the subject at the Zen teacher’s lists.

Clearly it’s now time to turn in before I do any more damage…