Drew Shannon
First Person is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.
I went on a Zen Buddhist retreat. It consisted of silently sitting, then walking, then sitting, then walking, then sitting, then walking, then sitting, then walking. Then lunch: salad and lentils. Followed by … let’s just say more sitting and walking.
Describing it like that makes it seem like I did nothing. Sure, I didn’t just sit; I sat in a lotus position with my hands folded together. I didn’t just walk; I walked with “my feet kissing the ground,” as some Zen master of embellishment said. But yes, I basically paid for the privilege of doing nothing.
I have enough half-conscious stories, with unhappy endings, going on in my mind already. I went to this retreat in Cambridge, Mass., because I wanted a story where nothing happens. With meditation, you learn to detach from the stories your mind creates about yourself and the world, that stop you from really being yourself and experiencing the world. At least that’s the idea, though idea is probably a most un-Zen way to put it.
When I told a friend I started meditating, he said that he never could, because his mind is always racing. Mine is, too, which is why a practice designed to slow it down appealed to me, even though, until recently, I’d been too busy frantically doing nothing to do nothing in the proper sense.
For a few months, I’d been trying to meditate 10 minutes each day, feeling like a failure, but inspired by what some fellow failure once told me: Sitting and trying to meditate counts as meditation. You sat, you were still and you survived your worry-flinging, distraction-slinging monkey mind. You might even have had a flash of insight or two.
I read an article by a meditator who concluded that years of practice had made him slightly less irritable. Achieving nirvana, feeling infinite compassion for all beings, awakening to non-duality – these are all worthy goals. But being slightly less irritable? That seemed a little more within my reach.
I’d never meditated for longer than 25 minutes, and was put off by the religious aspects of the retreat, so of course I felt a sense of impending doom when I signed up – which I did, very un-Zen-like, at the last possible minute.
I arrived for the early-morning orientation with my dread in tow. I was comforted by the fact that, up until then at least, I’d survived everything I’d ever done in life. So I’d probably survive this, too.
At orientation, the director advised us to observe our thoughts with compassionate curiosity. I liked that; much better than my usual morbid fascination. She also explained and then showed us – twice – how to prostrate ourselves before our interview with the Zen Master (I promptly forgot this, which would worry me for a good half the day). We put on robes, which felt a little silly, but only a little, then we were off … to nothing.
The lack of action took place in a hall with an altar to the Buddha at one end, a waiting area with a bell at the other and cushioned mats lined up against the walls. We sat, with people gradually taking their turn, following the bell to move to the waiting area, before proceeding to the Zen Master’s interview room.
There’s a scene at the end of Terminator 2 when the T-1000, an evil shape-shifting robot, keeps transforming in rapid succession before disintegrating in a vat of molten steel. The mind is like that when it has no outside stimulation. It demands attention, and will keep taking on new shapes to get it. I thought of a friend from school for the first time in years. I thought of my ex-girlfriend, not for the first time in years. I thought of sex. I thought of the people going for their interview and how I didn’t remember the protocol. I thought of undone chores. I thought and thought. At about the third hour, I felt some tranquility, as if my T-1000 mind had finally stopped thrashing around and melted into a vat of molten stillness. It returned to keep thrashing, of course, but maybe those little moments are enough.
Occasionally, the director would come around and, at our bow, hit us with a stick to jolt us into the moment. This was a lot more pleasant than it sounds. Or maybe it sounds pleasant to you already. I’m not judging.
The bell eventually tolled for me and I had my interview with the Zen Master. My hours of worrying about how to prostrate correctly paid off in me not prostrating correctly. Not that I’m so comfortable prostrating in the first place, but if I’m going to demean myself, I don’t want to demean myself more by doing a poor job at it.
The interview is an opportunity to ask an official wise man some questions. I asked if years of meditation had changed his thinking. He responded with a pizza metaphor, which, him being a Zen Master, automatically trumps my T-1000 metaphor.
If you work at a pizza shop, you’ll smell and see the same pizza as the hungry man coming in off the street. But, being around pizza all day, you’ll be less likely to want a slice. So, by meditating, you’ll still have the same kind of thoughts everyone else has; but you’ll be desensitized to them, and so less likely to nom-nom-nom, overthink-think-think, at the expense of outer health and inner peace.
The retreat ended with chanting, which felt a little silly, but only a little. I then left in a daze, having accomplished nothing and hungry for pizza.
Ben Shragge, a native of Hamilton, currently lives in Somerville, Mass.