Well, we’re back from our three-day Rohatsu intensive meditation retreat at our new Boundless Way temple in Worcester.
Jan & I dropped our bags on the floor of our room and took nearly an hour long nap. Still some serious sleep catch up ahead, but other stuff to do first…
This was our second retreat at the new temple but by a rough calculation the twenty-eighth retreat of the Boundless Way community.
By now a few things have become obvious…
It rather looks like we’re never going to become a well oiled machine…
Those who like crisply run sesshin with the priests cleanly shaven and smartly robed and everyone sure of where they fit into the hierarchy, probably are not going to like the way we do it.
We’re definitely at the raggedy-assed end of the Zen retreat world.
Been told so by folk who should know.
But let me tell you, it works!
And we like it this way.
Forty-three of us joined together, including three teachers and one thee quarter of the way there teacher in training. The larger majority either old hands or well on their way to that venerable status…
The sitting is serious. The interviews are focused on the great matter.
Endless little blips and pops, but nonetheless, the folk who devoted time they could have put to any number of other purposes, gamely threw themselves into the project.
Lots and lots of sitting, good nourishing food, not really enough sleep, pointed talks and for those who wanted it, three dokusan rooms running lines every day…
Oh, and some more sitting…
Serious Zen in an emerging Western style…
I’m so grateful to be part of it.
Also, thanks to Rod’s quick camera work, some fat guy dancing in the street…
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