Here are some notes I made during the Dogen Sangha sesshin with Brad Warner in August 2009. For photos, check Flickr.

The first day

This sesshin is going to be very different from the sesshin on Inishmore. The surroundings can’t get more different to Inishmore. It’s a broad, busy street with big stores and a McDonald’s across the street. Right behind the Vietnamese temple we’re staying in are railroad tracks. So it’s pretty noisy.

There are hardly any people in kimonos or kesas. Hardly any rakusus. There are 34 people and we are all sleeping in the Buddha Hall. We eat informally in the dining hall. There’s a buffet that you can get your food at. The food is Vietnamese, and very good.

Brad’s not big on sutras and ceremony. Not even one heart sutra was recited today, only meal sutras and opening and closing sutras for lecture. The lecture was funny. Brad started by politely talking about the Fukanzazengi, and that he hated reciting it. I thought he was so right! It’s an interesting enough text, but not suitable for chanting. So no Fukanzazengi! Yay.

Questions and discussion are encouraged during lecture, so that made for an interesting 1,5 hours. The schedule is pretty easy.

Brad’s actually not at all a showman, like some people would think from his writing. He’s modest, doesn’t know very well how to take a compliment and he has a good sense of humour. He was sincerely touched by how many people turned up to do some real Buddhist practice.

More tomorrow, it’s 21:30 and lights out.

The second day

Jeez, it was tough getting up at 4:30. The night was hard; of course I couldn’t go to sleep at 21:30. The guy next to me snores, and got up and out of the Buddha Hall 3 times during the night. I’m a light sleeper, so I woke up each time.

At 5, a nun started banging a huge bronze bell, having the sound resonate through the Buddha Hall (which is massive, btw). In a frail voice, she melodically chanted some sutra in Vietnamese. We stood and listened. We are guests here, and we have no clue what the custom is. The Vietnamese are Zen Buddhists, but very colourful; everything is red, yellow and gold. Their robes are sometimes dark brown, sometimes bright yellow. There are many many Buddha statues and Guan Yins as well.

Zazen was tough: it felt like 50 minutes or so. I ached all over, but it kept me present. I sit pretty quietly.

Funny thing: I originally wanted to do samu in the kitchen, but decided not to ask for it (you could), so I wouldn’t be a bother to the person making the schedule. So I was scheduled for the men’s toilets (as I feared). But they thought I was a man (they only saw my name and didn’t know it was a girl’s name), so I was ‘relocated’. Brad took my toilet duty (ha!), and I ended up in the kitchen. How’s that for the universe giving you what you want!

I feel at ease here, although this moring I was in quite a bad mood. There was this little cute-looking Pekinese dog in the temple, and when I tried to pet it, it snarled at me. F***ing dog with its stupid Buddha nature!

During the second zazen period I couldn’t stay awake. I dozed off most of the time, but I managed to stay upright, so I don’t think anyone noticed. And it’s none of their business anyway! :) Brad says everyone should only pay attention to their own practice.

When I lay awake last night, it was very nice to watch the golden Buddha’s. They are about 2,5 meters high and on a raised platform. It was dark, but one or two lights were left on to light up the Buddha’s. I felt like a million miles from home.

Lunch was nice. Zazen was bad and scattered. There was dokusan, but Brad took forever for each student, which is great when you are in there with him, but not so nice when you are expecting something and don’t know when it will happen. And then during kinhin (20 minutes!!), one person just wouldn’t move along so the whole line got held up. I couldn’t move for the last 5 minutes. That annoyed me to death! The rest of zazen I was just pissed off at the whole thing. Stupid sitting.

So no dokusan for me this afternoon. Tomorrow there will be another chance. Right now, I don’t feel like going to it, but I will anyway.

My mood has cleared quite a bit in the past two hours. It goes up and down like crazy during sesshin. Better get used to it.

The third day

As I write this, I’m back home (glass of whisky!). The last part of the second day was not very eventful. Dinner, and more zazen. I got pretty well into it, had a quiet sitting, althoug two Italians were talking the whole time somewhere outside on a footpath. It didn’t bother me much though.

I slept well. Stayed in the hall reading for a while, and when I wanted to go back into the Buddha Hall, there was pitch black darkness. So there I was, shuffling along, trying to find my bed and avoiding to step on people’s heads. My bed was next to some ornamental sculpture, and right next to me was a dragon’s head. In the dark, I touched it and could feel the whole outline of the head, which was a special feeling; putting your hand in a dragon’s mouth before going to sleep.

This morning, zazen was okay. Not very eventful, just okay, all 45 minutes of it. Then there was an hour free time which I spent chatting to people. And then samu. Just as I started, I was called for dokusan. Dokusan was very nice. It lasted for 45 minutes, so it was well worth the wait. All my annoyance had disapeared since yesterday. We had a few good laughs. It was a very informal chat, first about little things, and then we talked about the difference between Soto and Rinzai Zen. I explained about koans (I told Brad mine) and he told me what he knew.

When I told Brad about my scary experience on Inishmore, he said something like “everyone thinks these experiences should be all joyous and blissful, but they are not necessarily. They can be horrible and make you go whooh” (do scared face and wave your hands around). “So these experiences aren’t necessarily something you are going to enjoy. But after a while, it becomes more ordinary.”

Anyway, Brad is definitely one of the good guys. He’s as normal as people get (okay, a bit nerdy, wearing Godzilla t-shirts for zazen).

The last lecture wasn’t a lecture, just an opportunity for everyone to share their thoughts. Had some good laughs there, and some serious questions too. After our last zazen and lunch, it was time for the short closing ceremony. Nothing to it, really, just bows, not even prostrations. And then group photos were made. Some more informal chatting while everyone left.