Zazen - sitting with the frogs.

As I set in Zazen at one corner of the Zendo at Green Gulch Farm a spot I have been sitting at for almost two years of my practice period I would find myself visiting times and places of my past like in a dream. Although this was not the aim of Zazen or sitting meditation in the Zen Buddhist tradition. I was not strong enough to bliss myself out into a single pointedness of no thought as many of my fellow students were able to. My mind was and perhaps still is addicted to 'daydreaming', to entertaining past memories and the  fantasizing into the future and rarely did i fell into absolute silence where no thoughts arose, unless I had doze off to sleep. On few rare occasions I felt the bliss of effortless presence and the lightness of being where the physical form seems to disappear and along with it all the aches and pains, the sore lower back, the runny nose and so forth. Sometimes i felt tears running down my cheeks uninvited and sometimes I would feel like sitting in a vacuum where no sound or feeling, touches me until the feeling of being alone manifest itself in the form of melancholy and then I would let out a heave of heavy sigh and fall back to earth. Back to the aches and pains and the sneezing and runny nose and the wish that the bell would be hit to end the sitting.

The last sitting of the day was my favorite time for sitting Zazen as it was the time when I would sit and listen to owls and the frogs as they were going their own chanting outside of the Zendo. It would be getting dark and as silence fell outside, inside i felt myself drifting into my own quietude and my body would settle down into restful state much more readily after a long day of working in the fields. There was actually nothing special about sitting Zazen, at least to me other than the fact that it was like an unwinding of the mind and body after a day of hard work, it was like watching your body and mind, being put to alignment and stashed away for the next day. The first sitting for the day was more of a challenge as it started before sunrise and one is sore from sleep in the cold on hard floor of the what was once used to be cowsheds or stalls for cattle that was raised on the farm; Green Gulch was originally a cattle ranch. The aches and pains all over the body and the runny nose from the cold made sitting a misery especially in winter. Yet it was still an awesome feeling to be able to sit among twenty to thirty people all facing the white wall and not moving a muscle for forty five minutes a session.

What was there to do when you are in that state not being able to move or even breath too loud lest you keep your close by neighbors from falling asleep. Off course there was the practice teacher who moves soundlessly behind you holding a stick in his or her hand keeping an eye on those taking a nap while in sitting meditation and especially those likely to snore while at it. If an when you feel a light tap on your shoulder, you know you've been spotted and you give 'gasho', that is placing your palms together and lean forward to receive the whack that was forthcoming. There were teachers who liked you and those who don't and you can tell by the manner in which they enjoy delivering the stick on to your back. It sounds much louder than it hurts, thank the Buddhas for the thick robes and layers of thermal under wears you had on. Such was Zazen that I encountered at the Green Gulch Farm or aka Green Dragon Zen Center, in Sausalito, Marin County, California.

#Zen, Zazen. Green Gulch Farm, Green Dragon Zen Monastery.