My First One-Day Sesshin at Antai-ji

Last night we had Rinku - one of the monks gives a talk. The topic was a selection from Master Dogen's Shobogenzo on the 8 qualities of a Great Human Being (a Buddha) - which is essentially Dogen's version of the Noble Eightfold Path. They had already covered the first 6 before I came at previous Rinkus, so last night we only covered numbers 7 and 8. 7 was something like 'developing wisdom by eliminating greed and attachment' and 8 was 'not to engage in idle discussion (to eliminate discrimating thought)' It was pretty cool to actually do some theorizing here. Before this talk, nothing I experienced here seemed like it was actually Buddhism. There were a few questions that people raised that provoked a lot of responses and things got interesting.

The most profound thing that I heard came from (of course) Docho-san. He said something like 'The thing is that we always live in the thoughts of reality, but not in the things themselves. Not engaging in idle discussion doesn't mean don't talk. Just because we have a rule that you cannot talk during sesshin, this doesn't mean that we shouldnt say 'onegaishimashita' to the mailman when he comes to deliver packages. There is a way that you can talk without talking. This type of talking is the buddha-dharma.'

After rinku, we had a little more free-time and then went to bed. This morning, like usual, the jikido rang the bell through the hallways at 3:45. However, this time we were headed to go sit for 5 hours. The protocoal for entering the hondo for sesshin is different than on normal days - we walk through the front door, and there is no jikido bowing next to you.

Zazen was pretty horrible. We first sat a full hour, then it was 15 minutes walking meditation, and 45 minutes sitting meditation. We did that from 4am to 9am. Then we hurriedly walked to to get some breakfast. We finally had something besides steamed rice for breakfast. We had some rice gruel! It was actually pretty good and similar to oatmeal. There was some sort of cinammon potatoes as a side. We then quickly washed the dishes and had a short break. I went up and took a nap for about 20 minutes.

Then it was time to go back to the hondo at 10:15. We sat 5 more periods of zazen until 3 o'clock. The last few of these were pretty horrible. Even though I had been using alternating sitting positions every period (half-lotus with left leg on top, with right leg on top, and seiza), my knees were hurting really bad. During the last 10 minutes or so of the final period, I was essentially in agony. It is so painful because you are not supposed to move at all during any of the 45 minute periods. If you've never done it, you cannot even imagine how uncomfortable that can be. Some of the others fell asleep during many of the periods. This is easy to tell, because their heads bob up and down. I was quite surprised (and relieved) that Docho-san didn't yell at them or hit them with the stick :) This means that if I screw up, I won't be in too deep. But I still don't know how I will survive the sesshin. We would do what we did today, then after lunch, we would have gone to sit for another 5 hours. This would be done 4 days straight, with the final day being the 10 hour schedule that we had today (I think).

Finally we get some free time. Sesshin was over at 3pm today, and tomorrow is hosan (free day). The only actual obligations we have tomorrow are to come to breakfast and dinner. I started reading one of the books I brought with me - 'No Time To Lose - A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva.' I originally bought this book only because I couldn't find another copy of the original text (because I recently gave it to my roommate after I moved out). The Way of the Bodhisattva is a book about the motivation for the life of a Mahayana Buddhist practitioner - to relieve the suffering of all sentient beings.

It is sometimes hard to remember that this is what we are doing at Antai-ji. It is easy to get caught up in all of the rules and protocol and just take this place as being some kind of sick mind-training boot camp. But really, we are training ourselves (and thus, the permanent residents are providing a way to let others train themselves) to spread peace and lovingkindness in the world. In fact, the only reason why any of us should live is to promote this cause - to eliminate suffering from the minds of all sentient beings. This is a really hard job to do, but someone needs to step forward and rise to the challenge - if not me, then who?

This motivation might be the only thing that gets me through life here at Antai-ji. During sesshin today, I thought I would definitely have to leave before the real sesshin started, because I wouldn't be able to handle it. Now, I realize that if I give up, I am giving up on all suffering sentient beings.