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<\/a><\/div>\nI do love sesshin.<\/p>\n
Although when I step back for a moment, there seems little logic to it.<\/p>\n
Basically, for the duration (in this case five days) one gets up early and does lots and lots of zazen. In most cases somewhere between eight and ten hours a day.<\/p>\n
Now, at this point in my practice, and because it is informed by the discipline of koan introspection, I spend much, most of it in the interview room working with people as they engage the arcana of this practice that lives at the core of my heart.<\/p>\n
Sometimes a waltz. Sometimes slamming\u2026<\/p>\n
Always interesting.<\/p>\n
And the attention that is required is full and unrelenting. And the pain of holding still for such long periods of time can be the subject of books.<\/p>\n
And there is never enough sleep. Although it was major way mitigated by this sesshin in Toledo where the convention is to start at six in the morning \u2013 a major sleep in from my more usual schedule at other Boundless Way sesshin, which start the first day at five and then move to four am for the balance\u2026.<\/p>\n
Rinsen & Do\u2019on have grown quite a dance out there at Toledo. And some strange and wondrous creatures have thrown their lot in with them in this party we\u2019ve give our lives to.<\/p>\n
And then at the end ten of our number went completely out of their minds and took the Buddha way precepts.<\/p>\n
My head whirls\u2026<\/p>\n
And my heart\u2026<\/p>\n
Did I mention how sore my knees are? Pain memory, of course, has a quick half life.<\/p>\n
And my goodness<\/p>\n
The practice opens the heart wide.<\/p>\n
And that is a dangerous thing.<\/p>\n
But it is also something so beautiful I wish I had the words to describe it accurately instead of the great dance around I\u2019m forced to here\u2026<\/p>\n
It is a dance.<\/p>\n
to the beauty. <\/p>\n
It is the dance.<\/p>\n
to the panic.<\/p>\n
It is a dance.<\/p>\n
A dance to the end of love<\/p>\n
In every possible meaning of that phrase\u2026 <\/p>\n
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