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We begin sesshin tonight and will sit through Tuesday evening. Sesshin, for those of you unfamiliar with the practice, is an intensive period of practice \u2013 not a \u201cretreat\u201d as one might think with lots of time to meander by the lake in a thoughtful manner.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nWe sit quite a lot, beginning at about 4am and ending at 9pm, with just a few short breaks during the day.\u00a0 And a little nap<\/span><\/span> after lunch<\/span><\/span> time that I\u2019ve added to Katagiri\u2019s style.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nEven after more than 30 years of regularly doing sesshin, still it is entering the unknown darkness, sometimes wondrous, sometimes not so much.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nAnd that\u2019s just the point. It is, to borrow a phrase from Dogen, \u201cemploying nonthinking\u201d where thinking and not-thinking, good and bad, right and wrong, success and failure are just different costumes in the dance of life.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nThe full Dogen phrase adds another dimension. \u201cEmploying nonthinking is always crystal clear.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span>
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Lulled out sitting, in other words, is not nonthinking.\u00a0 Shikantaza<\/i> is earnest, vivid<\/i> sitting. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\nWhat is it to employ nonthinking? Well, first it\u2019s always employed, never still or stagnant or fixated, but is open, free, and focused.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>
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For example, this morning I was at Bald Eagle Lake with Bodhi, my dog buddy, throwing a tennis ball as far out into the lake as I could. This is one of our favorite things to do together. As I waited for him to swim out and back, an eagle came leisurely by (not the one above \u2013 that\u2019s from Google Images and was much closer than the one this morning), then swooped down and plucked a fish out of the water.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nFor a good part of the swoop, the fish must have been out of the eagle\u2019s sight. Eagles also miss quite a lot, I\u2019ve noticed. Catch or miss, something else was at work and I laughed in delight (and then put myself in the fishies skin\u2026). From my zen-centric view, a great dharma<\/a> presentation of employing nonthinking.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>
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But in a human life, how do we do it?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
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