What is a sesshin?

So, what exactly is a Sesshin?

The word sesshin, in Japanese, means 'to come in contact with the mind' or to unify the mind. It is a time that Zen practitioners take to spend a lot of time in meditation, and/or study Dharma teachings. Talking is usually prohibited. The lightest schedule I've seen has about 7 hours of meditation, and a couple hours of lectures. The heaviest schedule I've seen, which I just went through, is 15 hours of meditation per day, and nothing else.

So, here are the basic details of the sesshin at Antai-ji, formulated by Kodo Sawaki Roshi some decades ago when Antai-ji was still located in Kyoto. No talking - this isn't the strictest rule, you can talk for important things, like if you are working with the tenzo and need to figure out how to set something up. No showering, shaving, reading, writing, looking around, etcetera.

At around 3:30 AM, the jikido starts beating this huge drum and ringing bells. It sounds like some sort of Tibetan ceremony or something... I've never heard this sort of ominous percussion from Japanese Buddhism before. Then, at 3:45, he runs down the hall, ringing a bell really loud and bastardly, abruptly waking you from your sleep. You have less than 15 minutes to wash up, and you have to be in the Hondo before 4:00 AM. On the first day of sesshin, you go in through the front door, on the rest of the days, you go through the side door. By the side door, the jikido will be standing there, bent over at 90 degrees, holding the hammer he uses to strike the bell to begin the first meditation period.

At 4:00 AM, the clock on the wall inside of the Hondo rings four chimes, and then the jikido rings the big bell outside, comes in, sits down, and rings the meditation announcement bell 3 times. You sit from 4 to 5. At 5 AM, the clock on the wall will ring (5 chimes - also, the clock happens to make some weird noise at x:50, so you always know when there is 10 minutes left) and the jikido will ring the meditation announcement bell 2 times. From 5:00 to 5:15, you do kinhin - walking meditation. This means that you hold your hands level to the ground, left hand in a fist with thumb inside, and right hand on top. You have to walk one half-step every breath, so this means you move about 3 inches every 10 seconds. You cannot make any noises while you walk, so you must make special care that your (which stick to the straw tatami mat) don't make any noise when you pick them up.

At 5:15, the jikido will walk back to his seat and ring the meditation announcement bell once. At this time, you will go back to your seat. After everyone is settled, the bell is rung 3 times and you sit until 6. This continues with 45 minutes sitting and 15 minutes walking until 9 AM. At 9AM, when the clock rings, the tenzo (from outside) hits his clappers several times, at increasing speed. After he slows down the clappers (kaishaku), he hits them 3 times slowly. In between the 3 times he hits the kaishaku, the jikido will hit a bell. This indicates that we are ready to go to eat breakfast. The abbot gets up and walks out the door, and everyone peels off one-by-one, following him to the meal room. We sit down and have breakfast, no talking. After breakfast, there is diswashing, and that is all usually done by 9:25 AM.

From 9:25 until 10:15, you have free time. This basically means that you can use the bathroom, get some coffee, wash up again. In my case, since I am maintaining the chickens, most of my break (about 20 minutes) is taken up doing that. The other down-side is that I have to clean up all of the chicken shit, and I still have to maintain the rule of not taking a shower.

From 10:15 until 3 o'clock, we have another 5 sessions, just like we did from 4 to 9. The meal is signaled and we go to eat again at 3. This lunch\dinner is our second and last meal of the day - it is usually done oryoki style, but one day it was not, because we had ramen. From 3:25-4:15, you get another free period. But again, I have to take care of the chickens.

From 4:15 until 9, there are another 5 sessions of zazen and kinhin. Then you have free time from 9 until 3:45 AM the next morning, although you shouldn't make any noise. This obviously means that it is time to sleep. With all of the washing, you get about 6 hours of sleep. At first, I thought that 6 hours would be fine since I was just meditating all day long, I wouldn't get that tired. And, it is partially true. But, it is really painful to the mind that you basically meditate, wash up, sleep, wash up, meditate. There is no real break time for your psyche. It really begins to wear you down after a few days.

The fifth day is only a 10 hour schedule. So, you finish after the second 5 hour block of zazen. At 3 o'clock, a short little ceremony is done. Some things are re-arranged in the Hondo, the Docho offers some incense on the altar, and everyone does three full prostrations. We have the second meal, and then a tea meeting. At the beginning of the tea meeting, the abbot announces (in Japanese) that the sesshin has ended.
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I am not quite sure what to say about how the sesshin has affected me, but I do know that it has changed me. I meditated for 70 hours in the past 5 days. For the first 4 days, I meditated for 2 and 1/2 days. Obviously my mind is a little different. But it's not like I had some sort of awakening experience and now I am 'enlightened' or something like that. And I definitely wasn't expecting anything like that. In this tradition of Buddhism, enlightenment experiences are pushed aside. We are more concerned about just experiencing ordinary life. Sesshin is precisely that. You are bored to tears, your legs hurt like hell (several times per day, my legs literally felt like someone has jabbed a Bowie knife into them and held it there for a few minutes), you feel scuzzy ('scuuuuuuuuzzzayyyyyy' :P).

That is basically it. That is your life. There are many things that you do in life, but it is all just abstractions. Most of your life is lived entirely inside of your head. You are never 'in' the thing that you are doing. Sesshin helps us to be able to be 'in' the thing we're doing, because it is the most simple and yet most profound thing with the human body - sit cross legged. It is the easiest way to dissolve yourself into the universe, because there is nothing to distract you but your own thoughts. After a while, you see your thoughts as just being noise, your pain as just thoughts, and everything just drops off. No body, no mind, no dropping off.

And then, on the 5th day, you get up off of the cushion. 'This,' the abbot says, 'is when the real sesshin starts.'