My Zen weekend →[More:]My experience this past weekend was immensely instructive and valuable. It’s really difficult to explain what I learned, as it was really more of an experiential phenomenon than an intellectual one. I’ll begin with a brief description of what went on.

I arrived and checked in around 5:00 on Friday. The building was a former elementary school, built in 1970, on a hillside in rural Oregon. The place itself was quite beautiful, and very quiet. Everyone there for the retreat had a meal together, and we were then instructed on what would happen. The rest of the weekend was spent in silence, with the exception of chants, including formal meals. We got up at 5:00 am and spent a couple hours in meditation in the hall. Then, work duty, then more meditation, then lunch. After a break, more meditation, dinner, meditation, dharma talk then bed. Sunday repeated for the most part he pattern. The meditation sessions were in the main hall, and were told basically how to focus our minds on the present experience and remove all else.

I realized that Zen Buddhism is fundamentally about practice, and to a lesser extent about substantive concepts. The idea is to be completely ‘present’ at all times, and not distracted by the past, by fantasy, or by thoughts of the future. These are fine in daily life, but it is important to take time periodically to banish these things and look inward at the part of you which observes these things. The idea is that there is a precognizant self which sees everything we experience.

Focusing on the experience if the body and perception was very difficult for me. This is because of the way I am accustomed to viewing the relationship between myself and my body. I have a very dualistic view of this relationship: I have tended to view my body as the neighborhood in which I live, but not at all a part of myself. I am generally not fond of it, and resent being stuck inside it. One of the techniques we learned was to focus on breathing and feel the breath in the body. I hadn’t a clue how to do this, and still don’t really get it.

While some aspects of the experience were frustrating to me, I think it was extremely productive, and I intend to pursue this further. I met one of the people who supervises the Dharma Rain center here in Portland, (which incidentally, is a block east of Specklet’s house!) and spoke a bit about what they do there. I think I’ll visit soon. I’ve been traumatized by existential angst for almost as long as I can remember, and I think I’ve encountered something that can help with that. Most importantly, it does so without asking me to swallow anything that is contradictory to reason. According to wikipedia, Buddhism is a ‘non-theistic religion.’ There is no leap of faith required at all. Rather the idea is to work hard and find everything you need inside yourself. It’s already there.