while sitting: why i meditate
an act of remembering
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While Sitting are reflections on my practice. i share them the way we might converse after meditating together — unfinished, honest, still breathing.
i went to a two-day meditation retreat a couple of months ago. it was hosted by one of the oldest zen centers in the united states, Rochester Zen Center. the retreat center is austere. there is a zen garden in the middle with a metal, lotus sculpture and a burbling fountain. the recent snowfall had enrobed every surface in pillowy whiteness.
i was there to meditate for 10-hours a day in orchestrated rounds of open-eye wall sitting, walking, and chanting meditation. there were around 20 of us. we were not allowed to look at each other for the entirety of the retreat. we were asked not to speak and to walk slowly and intently. every moment was a chance to be in concentrated contemplation and stillness.
this practice is called sesshin 接心 (“touching” or “gathering the heart-mind” in japanese). it stretches back almost 500 years to japan: different traditions observe different rituals and restrictions, but the intention is to put you in the pressure cooker of your mind and body.
by the second day, i was on the verge of collapse. my body, mind, and heart were depleted. i could barely hold up my back while sitting. my legs were stiff, tingling, and numb. i repeatedly questioned why i was there at all. why was i subjecting myself to this pain? why was i even meditating?
No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell. - C.G. Jung. Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, pg. 43
my first contact with meditation was back in 2009 when i arrived at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. it was third semester of freshman year. i was drinking and doing drugs almost every day. i managed to keep it together, but my friends were starting to worry. i felt that i was going crazy. i distinctly remember multiple sleepless nights when i didn’t know where to put my eyes after i shut them. the dissociation was debilitating.
by chance, a friend, N, told me about a meditation & virtue class in the spring. for anyone who hasn’t been to Wisconsin in the spring, it’s beautiful. after a harrowing, grey winter, the spring is a rebirth. in this class, we would learn about mediation — the science, the various contemplative traditions — and how to meditate.
years later, i found out that the teacher, who was a paragon of peace and tranquility, was battling cancer during that class. i fondly remember his piercing blue eyes surrounded by peppery silver hair and a gentle, mountainous smile. he was dying and all at once saving my life.
i went on to mediate every single day for two years. eventually, i stopped. then last year when i was between jobs, i restarted my practice. this time, what brought me back to it was a sense of disconnection, separateness, and the realization that i was constantly punishing myself.
in the last half hour of sesshin, my body flopped over itself. i probably looked like a rag doll sitting crossed legged with its back and head utterly flaccid. my mind followed suit. i started to sob.
as those final thirty minutes ticked away, i realized that i had been meditating for an audience. i wanted to sit just the right way, breathe just the right way, focus just the right way. i would get upset when i got distracted. i understood that i had spent the past two days tearing myself to shreds. i meditated the way i lived.
when the final bell signaled the end of the retreat, i was an unmoored ship, wading in senseless waters of sorrow, euphoria, clarity, and confusion. there was no story to hold it all together. no projection or idealization to verbalize any of it. it was me, layered and inconclusive, yet so very awake. the past, present, and future folded in on themselves as i remembered and learned why i meditate.
Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything. - Gordon Hempton. One Square Inch via How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
i meditate so that i can be free in the face of despair, anger, impatience, and frustration, creating an island of peace, joy, and compassion with every mindful breath.
i meditate so that i can reach down into my being, like inching my hands towards the seafloor while the waves lap at my face to dredge up whatever mysteries allow themselves to see the light of day.
i meditate so that i can see, little by little, that i am always at home within myself, even if the lights are out.
What patterns of thought and behavior must you release that you are not ready to let go of yet?1
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I drew inspiration for this question from Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira and Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh