Since returning from a weekend away at Zen Mountain Monastery, I have been attempting to actualize the idea of my every day life as the material of my practice. There is no idyllic dream, no escape from reality, no trip to the mountain that brings profound enlightenment. Rather, enlightenment is found in scrubbing the grime of the kitchen sink, or in remaining present and awake through the children arguing in the backseat on the drive home, through the husband anxious about time and money, and through the administrative tasks of daily work.
Thus far, it has not been a breeze; in fact it has been somewhat painful. At each encounter with reality I rub up against myself. In dokusan (a one-on-one meeting with the abbot), I was given the dharma to befriend my emotions. At times, I have indulged the friendly feelings with fantasy and dreams, while keeping the uglier ones at bay, tying them up and secluding them in a dark room-- for fear that they might overtake me. Now, I turn to face those feelings- anger, pain, grief, sorrow- with vigilance, hoping that in their early stages I might tame the tiger while it is well fed and rousing, rather than neglect it until it is famished and eager to attack.
The realizations that emerged from this past weekend came to me unexpectedly. They did not emerge from periods of zazen (silent sitting meditation) or dharma discourse, but from a series of meal-time conversations with monastery residents and caretaking practice (aka sweeping a broom until I had developed a blister on my thumb!).
In attending the Intro to Zen retreat, I had expected a weekend of silence- and truthfully, I was looking forward to that! This was based on all my previous exposure to Zen, from groups that visit the retreat center where I work. But those groups are in sesshin- whereas the weekend I attended was thrust down in the middle of every day monastery life. We were there to experience the eight gates, of which zazen is only one. We were there to encounter the self in the midst of the mundane.
As I entered a dorm room with seven other women- some of whom were more chatty than I would have liked- I felt annoyed; and as I sat at meals around full square tables, I silently hoped to be left alone. And yet, at each meal I found myself in rich conversation with one of the monastic residents- a different one each time. While dinner time conversation is not listed as one of the eight gates, I wondered if perhaps these conversations too were another way of doing liturgy, or academic study, or dokusan.
I do not consider myself a great conversationalist-- especially with people I have just met. But somehow each monastic resident opened a gate of presence, and each conversation birthed a new insight. Usually these were one-on-one conversations, in which we became fully present to one another (twice almost to the neglect of chores!). These conversations mirrored the presence that the abbot shared with those who came to see him during dokusan.
The experience of presence was also encountered through work practice, which is another of the eight gates. Sweeping stairs and chopping tomatoes were activites of meditation. I recognized that my own mental resistance to certain work- particularly the administrative tasks of my paid employment- comes from an over-identification with the activities. We live in a society where some work is elevated over others-- where a person who scrubs toilets is regarded less than a person who manages companies. We come to identify ourselves with the work and roles we do in life, and in the process lose track of the self.
But the real self is not defined by work or by roles of any kind. The self is the universe, is reality, is all. In the monastery, work is spiritual practice- and it is not all grand. Students garden and scrub; a senior monastic teacher prepares the meals; the abbot crawls into the aqueduct tunnel to take measurements for a building project. By coming to see the tasks of my life as spiritual practice, rather than acts of self-definition, I can deepen my focus and be present in the activity. I make the intention now of focusing on these administrative tasks as work practice, returning to the excel sheet in the same way I might return to the breath, or the sweep of broom, or the slice of tomato.
As I return to the world from the weekend retreat, I walk with all this in mind. While a part of me would love to pack my bags and move to the mountains to become a monk (even monastic life can appear like a dream, a beautiful escape!), I have practice to do-- to face the self, to awaken-- right here and now.
Thus far, it has not been a breeze; in fact it has been somewhat painful. At each encounter with reality I rub up against myself. In dokusan (a one-on-one meeting with the abbot), I was given the dharma to befriend my emotions. At times, I have indulged the friendly feelings with fantasy and dreams, while keeping the uglier ones at bay, tying them up and secluding them in a dark room-- for fear that they might overtake me. Now, I turn to face those feelings- anger, pain, grief, sorrow- with vigilance, hoping that in their early stages I might tame the tiger while it is well fed and rousing, rather than neglect it until it is famished and eager to attack.
The realizations that emerged from this past weekend came to me unexpectedly. They did not emerge from periods of zazen (silent sitting meditation) or dharma discourse, but from a series of meal-time conversations with monastery residents and caretaking practice (aka sweeping a broom until I had developed a blister on my thumb!).
In attending the Intro to Zen retreat, I had expected a weekend of silence- and truthfully, I was looking forward to that! This was based on all my previous exposure to Zen, from groups that visit the retreat center where I work. But those groups are in sesshin- whereas the weekend I attended was thrust down in the middle of every day monastery life. We were there to experience the eight gates, of which zazen is only one. We were there to encounter the self in the midst of the mundane.
As I entered a dorm room with seven other women- some of whom were more chatty than I would have liked- I felt annoyed; and as I sat at meals around full square tables, I silently hoped to be left alone. And yet, at each meal I found myself in rich conversation with one of the monastic residents- a different one each time. While dinner time conversation is not listed as one of the eight gates, I wondered if perhaps these conversations too were another way of doing liturgy, or academic study, or dokusan.
I do not consider myself a great conversationalist-- especially with people I have just met. But somehow each monastic resident opened a gate of presence, and each conversation birthed a new insight. Usually these were one-on-one conversations, in which we became fully present to one another (twice almost to the neglect of chores!). These conversations mirrored the presence that the abbot shared with those who came to see him during dokusan.
The experience of presence was also encountered through work practice, which is another of the eight gates. Sweeping stairs and chopping tomatoes were activites of meditation. I recognized that my own mental resistance to certain work- particularly the administrative tasks of my paid employment- comes from an over-identification with the activities. We live in a society where some work is elevated over others-- where a person who scrubs toilets is regarded less than a person who manages companies. We come to identify ourselves with the work and roles we do in life, and in the process lose track of the self.
But the real self is not defined by work or by roles of any kind. The self is the universe, is reality, is all. In the monastery, work is spiritual practice- and it is not all grand. Students garden and scrub; a senior monastic teacher prepares the meals; the abbot crawls into the aqueduct tunnel to take measurements for a building project. By coming to see the tasks of my life as spiritual practice, rather than acts of self-definition, I can deepen my focus and be present in the activity. I make the intention now of focusing on these administrative tasks as work practice, returning to the excel sheet in the same way I might return to the breath, or the sweep of broom, or the slice of tomato.
As I return to the world from the weekend retreat, I walk with all this in mind. While a part of me would love to pack my bags and move to the mountains to become a monk (even monastic life can appear like a dream, a beautiful escape!), I have practice to do-- to face the self, to awaken-- right here and now.
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