Wednesday 15 April 2015

Back from sesshin

I joked that it took only one bedtime with a reluctant 8-year-old to re-establish pre-sesshin stress levels once I'd come back... but in truth it's not been like that. But it's been interesting.

As Keizan Sensei puts it, when we go on sesshin, we voluntarily submit ourselves to a set of externally-imposed restrictions on our time and behaviour. So I get up a lot earlier than I'm used to, and I go to be a lot earlier too. I eat more regularly (though just as fast!), spend much more time silent, and of course there's all the sitting...!

One thing that I've grown to appreciate is being offline - not having an internet connection. I get jittery at first, like someone who's just decided to quite smoking. There's something I'm supposed to be doing... oh, that's right... my email. Relax. Pretty quickly, though, not having to check my email or Facebook or whatever becomes a huge relief. When I got back to Northampton, I didn't turn the computer on for two days (something of a personal record).

But now I'm back at work, and the emails need answering, and the meetings need attending, and the students need reassurance (or yelling at, occasionally!), the family needs attention, the dishes and the recycling aren't going to do themselves, and The Ten Thousand Things come crashing down all around me just as they ever have. So has anything changed?

Yes, and no.

Yes: I've reconnected with the sangha, with Sensei, with my brother and sister monks, and I carry that sense of connection back home with me to strengthen my practice and my sense of not being alone in this. And yes, I always find it easier to get my arse on the zafu after sesshin, and I've sat every day since returning and it's felt easier than before.

But no: the world is ever as it was... constant in its furious impermanence. So this is where I have to make my home. Sesshin doesn't rock my world, it brings me back to it, gently and repeatedly.

I'll be back!

Crosby Hall Educational Trust - for just a week, Little Crosby Zen Monastery!

Thursday 2 April 2015

No Zen on 8 April

Just a quick note to say that there will be no zazen on 8 April during the spring sesshin at Crosby. We're back again as per usual on Weds 15 April.

While I'm posting here... we held service last night for the first time in ages, which was great. Unless otherwise stated, we'll start a scheduled of monthly services on the first Wednesday of each week. The next service will therefore be held on Weds 6 May. These will be 'formal' sittings, so robes if you have them.

Oh... and also...! Turns out I don't have a translation of the Enmei Jukku Kannon Gyo on the service sheets... found this translation today by Dogo Barry Graham (source):

Kanzeon
Veneration to the Buddha
The Buddha is my origin
The Buddha and me - no separation
The Three Treasures and me - no separation
Bliss outside of time, pure freedom from self
First morning thought: Kanzeon
Last nighttime thought: Kanzeon
Thoughts, thoughts arise from the mind
Thoughts, thoughts are nothing but the mind