{"id":3746,"date":"2017-10-25T10:37:02","date_gmt":"2017-10-25T16:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/?p=3746"},"modified":"2022-01-25T20:07:17","modified_gmt":"2022-01-26T02:07:17","slug":"long-distance-train-remembering-beginning-zen-forty-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/2017\/10\/long-distance-train-remembering-beginning-zen-forty-years-ago.html","title":{"rendered":"Long-Distance Train: Remembering Beginning Zen Forty Years Ago"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"download\"Forty years ago today, I walked into the Minnesota Zen Center building (pictured), met Katagiri Roshi, and started this Zen journey. It was windy and cold. I was twenty-one and nervous as hell.<\/p>\n

I had dropped out of college because it no longer made any sense and instead spent my days working in a K-Mart warehouse, hauling boxes of plastic products from one trailer to another \u2013 stuff that people didn\u2019t really need.<\/p>\n

I was looking for meaning. I was to find out that it was up to me.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how I describe the encounter in Keep Me In Your Heart A While: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri<\/em>:<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026At my introduction to Zen with Katagiri Roshi, I was the only student.Roshi ushered me into a small room and we sat face-to-face a few feet apart. He then simply and joyfully did what he was there to do. \u201cThere are three aspects of zazen,\u201d Roshi began, \u201cwhich really aren\u2019t three things: body, breath, and mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Away Roshi went as if he were speaking to a group of thirty instead of just one young, ragged hippie wanna-be in tight, holey blue jeans. My body was not well suited to sitting on a cushion on the floor for more than five minutes. After ten minutes, both legs were dead asleep. Katagiri Roshi said not to worry about sleepy legs. \u201cYour legs also need a nap sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

After fifteen minutes my legs woke up with the most intense, throbbing knees (and then too often for the next ten years, I was in physical, emotional, and\/or existential agony during zazen, especially during sesshin).Roshi didn\u2019t seem to mind that I was in pain:<\/p>\n

In zazen, the body is upright, like a Bodhidharma doll. You know the Bodhidharma doll? Bodhidharma doll is like this [then he hit himself sharply in the chest, rolled way back on his cushion and sprang back up, laughing]. Zen monk sits so that whatever comes up, he bounces back, just like doll. Even if you hit the floor, you bounce back. Seven times down, eight times up. Whatever happens, you spring back. Do you understand? Anyway, someday maybe you will understand. Seven times down, eight times up\u2014one more time up than down, so we must start on the floor, probably face down in dookie.<\/p>\n

That session with Roshi was [forty] hitting-the-floor years ago. Writing about my old master now, my heart laments. He was extraordinarily kind to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will have lots of spiritual experiences but they are just scenery,\u201d he told me in our first meeting. \u201cYou must be long-distance train, anyway. Do you understand? Long-distance train. Most important point is to reach final goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

__________<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forty years ago today, I walked into the Minnesota Zen Center building (pictured), met Katagiri Roshi, and started this Zen journey. It was windy and cold. I was twenty-one and nervous as hell. I had dropped out of college because it no longer made any sense and instead spent my days working in a K-Mart […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,75,18],"class_list":["post-3746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-katagiri-roshi","tag-zazen","tag-zen"],"yoast_head":"\nLong-Distance Train: Remembering Beginning Zen Forty Years Ago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Forty years ago today, I walked into the Minnesota Zen Center building (pictured), met Katagiri Roshi, and started this Zen journey. 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