As I sit this morning an uncommon silence settles over me, like a six inch blanket of snow at midnight. I have just emerged from a week long Zen meditation retreat here in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I joined 40 others in sitting zazen, facing the wall. The idea behind this practice is that you do not move. “Sit like you are a massive tree,” was one of the instructions. Remaining immobile for six hours a day with nothing but breath, pulsation, drifting thoughts and swirling memories, everything moves at a glacier pace. You become like the cold mountain stream, trickling still. Sometimes it takes a whopping silence and a huge span of time doing nothing to realize just how magical this life is. When a wall of silence and no-thought overcomes you, you are like an arctic explorer. You lose the typical bearings that guide you on through days of scheduled appointments, Zoom calls and deadlines. In this kind of practice, as you breathe into the atmosphere of your heart, winds of grief, sorrow, and longing lance through you. In a flash, you are overcome by tremors and tears. Through the countless rounds of sitting, bowing, prostrating, and chanting, places long frozen inside begin to melt. Pieces of you flake off. Somedays big chunks of your old self lop off and drop away.
And after days of plodding nowhere, sitting razor still, what emerges is something even more strange than the goal of staying upright and alert for seven days for no apparent reason. What happens is that a vast expanse of peace settles over you. While solitary, everything everywhere seems to merge into a single space, into a bright and empty field. Totally exhausted, yet totally renewed, you realize at last what matters most. To let go of hard feelings, to love all that you can and to celebrate this glorious, mind-blowing, unpredictable life.
