I can't believe another week has gone by. It's free day today (Sunday). Tonight we begin sesshin, or "session", which is 5 days of uninterrupted sitting. It's about 4 more periods each day than we have been doing, and I'm hopeful my body will hold up.
Speaking of bodily functions, a few words on the food. Overall, it's excellent. We do eat gruel alot, and I've heard that sesshin is daily gruel -- a mixture of soft rice and leftover vegetables. We've got a run on beets at the moment, so much of the time gruel has a reddish pink hue.
I'm finding the whole grain diet -- porridge in the morning, rice at lunch and dinner -- is a bit tough on the system. Hence, I rely on the twin virtues of prunes and coffee to keep things moving. They are not quite enough. Perhaps sitting still stymies the natural colon flow and peristalisis. Regardless, I've discovered one of the challenges of maintaining the monastic schedule.
Last week I took quite a bit of time off from the program to prepare for and go to job interviews. I met with some very nice folks at Adobe Systems and at UC Berkeley. I would be thrilled to get an offer from either place. One concern, though: I'm not sure I'm ready to be anyone's employee again, so may ask Adobe to investigate contract work. The UCB gig is short term contract, although a longer commute, to downtown Berkeley. Working for a non-profit has a great deal of appeal, and the poeple seem very mellow. I'm realizing how wrong my last job was for me, with the reliance on firedrills, the lack of process, and the general lack of support for my function at any level of management. Thank you, Sun, for laying me off. I sure do appreciate it.
Time for laundry. Then I'm off to the pool, to stretch my muscles and take stock of my weight loss, which is a lovely 4-5 pounds. (Thank you, gruel!) One note: saw a very good Buddhist movie last week: The Fisherman and His Wife, by Dorris Dorrie. Her most well-known movie, Enlightenment Guaranteed, is also supposed to be excellent. Can't say much for last night's selection: Zen Noir. It was funny for about ten minutes. So I stayed fifteen minutes too long.
Gassho!
Friday, July 28, 2006
Monday, July 24, 2006
Day 9
Can't sleep. Today I let a man stick a needle into my forehead. And I paid him.
The program's going well. We're all warming up to each other. Even the guy who ran into me in the zendo, and the loud girl from my home town -- she's the loveliest of all. Everybody's pretty nifty right now. We're all studying the Diamond Sutra together. The original Conze translations were returned without the culprit being unveiled. Someone decided they'd rather chant Thich Nhat Hahn's translation, so they copied his version and hid the Conze copies. A first in SFZC pedagogy.
We got a lot of time off over the weekend, and I took advantage of it to get a massage and acupuncture. It helped my aching muscles and my energy. Still, I'm very nervous about the coming week, and being able to keep up with the sitting and deal with the pain and restlessness. Still, I'm seeing what I'm getting out of it and it's pretty substantial.
So here I go! Tired, hungry, and distracted by my "outside" life. And now, thanks to anxiety, even more sleep deprived. You'd be surprised how many people are up at night, wandering the halls. This enlightenment stuff is not for the faint of heart.
The program's going well. We're all warming up to each other. Even the guy who ran into me in the zendo, and the loud girl from my home town -- she's the loveliest of all. Everybody's pretty nifty right now. We're all studying the Diamond Sutra together. The original Conze translations were returned without the culprit being unveiled. Someone decided they'd rather chant Thich Nhat Hahn's translation, so they copied his version and hid the Conze copies. A first in SFZC pedagogy.
We got a lot of time off over the weekend, and I took advantage of it to get a massage and acupuncture. It helped my aching muscles and my energy. Still, I'm very nervous about the coming week, and being able to keep up with the sitting and deal with the pain and restlessness. Still, I'm seeing what I'm getting out of it and it's pretty substantial.
So here I go! Tired, hungry, and distracted by my "outside" life. And now, thanks to anxiety, even more sleep deprived. You'd be surprised how many people are up at night, wandering the halls. This enlightenment stuff is not for the faint of heart.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
how it all started
First, for those who don't know, I've been coming to SFZC for about 7 years, doing their Saturday monring public program, which is a 40-minute meditation and a dharma lecture, given by a senior monk. About 2 and a half months ago, I signed up for a class here called Establishing the Path of Practice. It is a one-year class designed to help you establish a Zen meditation practice at home, and also to increase your mindfulness and awareness of yourself and the world around you.
The assignments were simple but very difficult: sit zazen 30 minutes a day, stretch 30 minutes a day, and do a mindfulness exercise. Week 1-2, it was to eat a meal without any distractions: no talking, reading the paper, listening to NPR, or even planning the day. That was just about impossible. Week 3-4 was to tune in when driving, walking, or any other form of commuting. So twice a day, for 30-50 minutes, I had to just be aware of my body while piloting my Honda Civic, or be open to the sights, smells, and sounds of riding the bus. If walking, the assignment was to feel how your feet feel when they come into contact with the ground, see how your body felt moving through space. This could be quite pleasant. Or not, in the case of taking the bus.
Week 5-6 was to take a moment at every transition to check in with yourself: see how you're feeling, what your body's telling you. A transition was any change in location or activity. There were about a million transitions a day. The last assignment was to dress mindfully. First, pay attention to how you put on your clothes. Next, change it up. Put your other leg in the pants first. Or something, I didnt' quite get this one.
The upshot of all this sitting and mindfulness was that I got in touch with all kinds of things, not all of them welcome. There's a delightful senseof calmness that comes fromteh meditation, but there's also an awareness of just how much you're ignoring on a day to day basis. In short, I tapped into that great human condition, suffering.
Now what? I'm not sure. It's sortof like getting served a great big plate of turkey dinner and not really being hungry. On the other hand, I don't really want to waste it. OK, maybe that's not a good analogy. But this EPP class, and my being laid off from Sun Microsystems, set the stage for my deciding to come live at the Zen Center.
Here's how it's going:
Day 4
I went a little batshit with restlessness. It's encouraged to stay in the building during the program; I went twice to the cafe across the street to buy cookie. Basically, I wanted to go home.
I also had two minor run-ins with people here. It's dawned on me that it's not all about me and my meditation experiences; it's about everyone else who's here, too. A friend clued me in: with these things, it's not teh sitting that's so hard; it's getting along with everyone. There are some interesting characters here, and that's putting it lightly. However, I can choose who to engage with, and what to let go by. Although that woman putting a broom in my face really pissed me off. Bitch.
Notables: Had a great yoga class and loosened up these stiff and tight shoulders. Yay!
Day 5
Today was the first day it was hard to get out of bed. The good news is, I'm back in my happy place. The sitting is getting easier, and I'm less afraid of the pain in my knees, that it will be come unbearable ro cause me permanent joint damage. More later!
The assignments were simple but very difficult: sit zazen 30 minutes a day, stretch 30 minutes a day, and do a mindfulness exercise. Week 1-2, it was to eat a meal without any distractions: no talking, reading the paper, listening to NPR, or even planning the day. That was just about impossible. Week 3-4 was to tune in when driving, walking, or any other form of commuting. So twice a day, for 30-50 minutes, I had to just be aware of my body while piloting my Honda Civic, or be open to the sights, smells, and sounds of riding the bus. If walking, the assignment was to feel how your feet feel when they come into contact with the ground, see how your body felt moving through space. This could be quite pleasant. Or not, in the case of taking the bus.
Week 5-6 was to take a moment at every transition to check in with yourself: see how you're feeling, what your body's telling you. A transition was any change in location or activity. There were about a million transitions a day. The last assignment was to dress mindfully. First, pay attention to how you put on your clothes. Next, change it up. Put your other leg in the pants first. Or something, I didnt' quite get this one.
The upshot of all this sitting and mindfulness was that I got in touch with all kinds of things, not all of them welcome. There's a delightful senseof calmness that comes fromteh meditation, but there's also an awareness of just how much you're ignoring on a day to day basis. In short, I tapped into that great human condition, suffering.
Now what? I'm not sure. It's sortof like getting served a great big plate of turkey dinner and not really being hungry. On the other hand, I don't really want to waste it. OK, maybe that's not a good analogy. But this EPP class, and my being laid off from Sun Microsystems, set the stage for my deciding to come live at the Zen Center.
Here's how it's going:
Day 4
I went a little batshit with restlessness. It's encouraged to stay in the building during the program; I went twice to the cafe across the street to buy cookie. Basically, I wanted to go home.
I also had two minor run-ins with people here. It's dawned on me that it's not all about me and my meditation experiences; it's about everyone else who's here, too. A friend clued me in: with these things, it's not teh sitting that's so hard; it's getting along with everyone. There are some interesting characters here, and that's putting it lightly. However, I can choose who to engage with, and what to let go by. Although that woman putting a broom in my face really pissed me off. Bitch.
Notables: Had a great yoga class and loosened up these stiff and tight shoulders. Yay!
Day 5
Today was the first day it was hard to get out of bed. The good news is, I'm back in my happy place. The sitting is getting easier, and I'm less afraid of the pain in my knees, that it will be come unbearable ro cause me permanent joint damage. More later!
Monday, July 17, 2006
Life at the Zen Center
I've survived! It's Day 3 at the San Francisco Zen Center and I've adjusted to life "inside" fairly easily. Here are the high points.
Day 0 - Friday
Moved in, met my roommate Abi at dinner. She's a retired schoolteacher and we get along just fine. I have a roommate. It's like summer camp.
Day 1 - Saturday
Killer day. Sat 8 periods of zazen (sitting meditation) of 40 minutes each. First and second periods are fine. Third period, your knees start to hurt from sitting cross-legged (half lotus, technically). And, you're not supposed to get up. Or move. Or do anything except get down with the pain. Unfortunately the pain in your knees can make you tense up, and then your back starts to hurt. Then starts the sort of knee-shoulder/neck/back tango where you shift to relieve one until the other becomes excruciating. Oh, and your legs go to sleep. But you can breathe all you want. It's encouraged.
There is this funny thing that happens to me. My leg is asleep, which makes that knee hurt more. So I lean away from the leg, ostensibly to open up the artery that goes down it, but then I get this idea that maybe I can actually get away from my leg altogether -- detach it and lay it on the cushion and pick it up on my way out of the zendo. It's an appealing idea -- no leg, no pain. Quite rational. This idea remains moderately amusing for about 30 seconds. Only 2330 more seconds to go...
Day 2 - Sunday
The regular monastic schedule is mellower than the one-day sitting we did Saturday. They still wake you at 5am, but instead of all zazen all day, you get yoga and a two-hour work period, so you're not sitting all day. Also, lunch is in the dining room, instead of oryoki, which is the ritualistic form of eating in the temple. It takes about 35 minutes to unwrap the bowls, chant, bow, serve, cleanup, and rewrap the bowls. That leaves about 5 minutes to eat. I am a slow eater. I am expecting to lose weight.
A funny thing happened to time today. First off, it was like a year and a half between breakfast and lunch. After lunch, I got disoriented. I couldn't remember whether I'd just finished lunch or dinner. It took me a few mintues to sort out, or a few seconds. Who knows. The nice thing is, it doesn't really matter how confused you get, because there's a schedule and bells and a han, which is a big wooden block that someone hits with a mallet to signal that it's time to return to the zendo for more sitting. And you're not encouraged to leave the building, so even if you get stuck in a corner somewhere, someone's bound to find you and shepherd you along.
Also noticed that my thinking is changing a bit. Thoughts are getting flatter and clearer somehow -- they come into my mind like airy little wafers instead of Big Macs. Everything optional and a bit inconsequential. I like it.
Notable occurences: A glass light globe fell outside our room door, so I spent some time sucking up glass shards with a vaccuum nozzle. Oh, and the translations of the Diamond Sutra went missing, which is what we're supposed to be studying for the next 3 weeks. So there is intrigue and consternation here SFZC.
Day 3
Free day! Got to the gym, had a nice swim and a jaccuzzi, and enjoyed doing all sorts of things my body knows how to do: walking, carrying a purse, and driving a car. Also enjoyed having a shower with full water pressure. I shaved! Other things accomplished: vaccummed room, did laundry, got a cute haircut, bought a large bottle of ibuprofen, and had a bubble tea with Roger. My birthday dinner is shaping up into a nice bunch of folks. Not sure what my plans are for my actual birthday, which is coming right up on Sunday Aug. 6, so shop early and often for your favorite 37-year-old. I need, um, a new Swiss army knife. Agents of the Dept of Homeland Security confiscated mine in the Dulles Airport.
I'm definitely dopey. Forgot my earplugs at the pool today (this has never happened). Also got a bit distracted while swimming at one point and forgot to breath. This situation corrected itself fairly naturally. Still, there are side effects to spending a lot of one on one time with your own brain. Still, it's quite a mood lift. I am remarkably jolly.
The food has been excellent until now -- fresh, organic vegetarian fare. Tonight a bit of a shift, to gruel. And cabbage. And "pudding". Hopefully the situation will return to its earlier high points.
Notables: got to my car this morning to find it covered in ash. It's a bit of a transitional neighborhood here at 300 Page St. Someone burnt a mattress in the night, just 2 feet from my car. It's a wonder it didn't blow up. Oh well! Add "got a carwash" to my list of accomplishments. Got some fun news from the outside world: my friend Keith took two silver medals in the Gay Games in Chicago on Sunday for diving. Go Keith! Can't wait to hear how today's 3 meter competition went -- could there be a gold in Kiki's future? Stay tuned!
Day 0 - Friday
Moved in, met my roommate Abi at dinner. She's a retired schoolteacher and we get along just fine. I have a roommate. It's like summer camp.
Day 1 - Saturday
Killer day. Sat 8 periods of zazen (sitting meditation) of 40 minutes each. First and second periods are fine. Third period, your knees start to hurt from sitting cross-legged (half lotus, technically). And, you're not supposed to get up. Or move. Or do anything except get down with the pain. Unfortunately the pain in your knees can make you tense up, and then your back starts to hurt. Then starts the sort of knee-shoulder/neck/back tango where you shift to relieve one until the other becomes excruciating. Oh, and your legs go to sleep. But you can breathe all you want. It's encouraged.
There is this funny thing that happens to me. My leg is asleep, which makes that knee hurt more. So I lean away from the leg, ostensibly to open up the artery that goes down it, but then I get this idea that maybe I can actually get away from my leg altogether -- detach it and lay it on the cushion and pick it up on my way out of the zendo. It's an appealing idea -- no leg, no pain. Quite rational. This idea remains moderately amusing for about 30 seconds. Only 2330 more seconds to go...
Day 2 - Sunday
The regular monastic schedule is mellower than the one-day sitting we did Saturday. They still wake you at 5am, but instead of all zazen all day, you get yoga and a two-hour work period, so you're not sitting all day. Also, lunch is in the dining room, instead of oryoki, which is the ritualistic form of eating in the temple. It takes about 35 minutes to unwrap the bowls, chant, bow, serve, cleanup, and rewrap the bowls. That leaves about 5 minutes to eat. I am a slow eater. I am expecting to lose weight.
A funny thing happened to time today. First off, it was like a year and a half between breakfast and lunch. After lunch, I got disoriented. I couldn't remember whether I'd just finished lunch or dinner. It took me a few mintues to sort out, or a few seconds. Who knows. The nice thing is, it doesn't really matter how confused you get, because there's a schedule and bells and a han, which is a big wooden block that someone hits with a mallet to signal that it's time to return to the zendo for more sitting. And you're not encouraged to leave the building, so even if you get stuck in a corner somewhere, someone's bound to find you and shepherd you along.
Also noticed that my thinking is changing a bit. Thoughts are getting flatter and clearer somehow -- they come into my mind like airy little wafers instead of Big Macs. Everything optional and a bit inconsequential. I like it.
Notable occurences: A glass light globe fell outside our room door, so I spent some time sucking up glass shards with a vaccuum nozzle. Oh, and the translations of the Diamond Sutra went missing, which is what we're supposed to be studying for the next 3 weeks. So there is intrigue and consternation here SFZC.
Day 3
Free day! Got to the gym, had a nice swim and a jaccuzzi, and enjoyed doing all sorts of things my body knows how to do: walking, carrying a purse, and driving a car. Also enjoyed having a shower with full water pressure. I shaved! Other things accomplished: vaccummed room, did laundry, got a cute haircut, bought a large bottle of ibuprofen, and had a bubble tea with Roger. My birthday dinner is shaping up into a nice bunch of folks. Not sure what my plans are for my actual birthday, which is coming right up on Sunday Aug. 6, so shop early and often for your favorite 37-year-old. I need, um, a new Swiss army knife. Agents of the Dept of Homeland Security confiscated mine in the Dulles Airport.
I'm definitely dopey. Forgot my earplugs at the pool today (this has never happened). Also got a bit distracted while swimming at one point and forgot to breath. This situation corrected itself fairly naturally. Still, there are side effects to spending a lot of one on one time with your own brain. Still, it's quite a mood lift. I am remarkably jolly.
The food has been excellent until now -- fresh, organic vegetarian fare. Tonight a bit of a shift, to gruel. And cabbage. And "pudding". Hopefully the situation will return to its earlier high points.
Notables: got to my car this morning to find it covered in ash. It's a bit of a transitional neighborhood here at 300 Page St. Someone burnt a mattress in the night, just 2 feet from my car. It's a wonder it didn't blow up. Oh well! Add "got a carwash" to my list of accomplishments. Got some fun news from the outside world: my friend Keith took two silver medals in the Gay Games in Chicago on Sunday for diving. Go Keith! Can't wait to hear how today's 3 meter competition went -- could there be a gold in Kiki's future? Stay tuned!
Thursday, July 13, 2006
muggy Virginia
First off, the state of Virginia is for lovers. Or so they say. It is also very pretty: lush and green, with horse pastures and historic monuments and miles and miles of Blue Ridge parkway to drive. We've been having a nice time, my friend and I, hiking the Appalachian Trail, spotting a bear at the roadside, and camping in the Shenandoah Valley.
It's been three weeks since I was laid off from my high-paying but not-very-much-fun corporate writing gig. And now I've got that enviable combination of money and time and a single question to ponder: What do I *really* want to do with my life? So far, Virginia has not provided any shining examples of creative endeavors successfully undertaken. And, for all its historically significant sites and scenic beauty, Virginia is hot. And humid. Sometimes there are thundershowers, msotly unexpected.
We've seen Monticello, which means little mountain in Italian. We've had several occasions to see women in bonnets and men in curly-edged hats. Traditional fare has been consumed. We have spyed Natural Bridge, a very large rock bridge formed awhile ago by a lot of water flowing in one particular place. Now, we're thinking of going to the mall, mainly because it's air-conditioned.
Tomorrow: home again, to a three-week Zen Buddhist practice period. Meditation should provide ample opportunity for poindering the question of my life's work.
It's been three weeks since I was laid off from my high-paying but not-very-much-fun corporate writing gig. And now I've got that enviable combination of money and time and a single question to ponder: What do I *really* want to do with my life? So far, Virginia has not provided any shining examples of creative endeavors successfully undertaken. And, for all its historically significant sites and scenic beauty, Virginia is hot. And humid. Sometimes there are thundershowers, msotly unexpected.
We've seen Monticello, which means little mountain in Italian. We've had several occasions to see women in bonnets and men in curly-edged hats. Traditional fare has been consumed. We have spyed Natural Bridge, a very large rock bridge formed awhile ago by a lot of water flowing in one particular place. Now, we're thinking of going to the mall, mainly because it's air-conditioned.
Tomorrow: home again, to a three-week Zen Buddhist practice period. Meditation should provide ample opportunity for poindering the question of my life's work.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)