This evening I participated in a ZaZen meditation workshop. Before getting to the workshop I slowly discovered that there would be no transportation to this place. I knew where it was, about a 30 minute walk from campus. Normally this would not be so bad, but by 5:30 it was as dark as Midnight out. Jessi went out to dinner with her Tea Ceremony group, so I was a little apprehensive about walking 30 minutes in the dark without street lights to a place I kinda knew about alone.
I was considering not going, when I met an equally confused student, and as a team we decided to forge through the dark wildernesse, just for the heck of it.
I'm late for a very important date
We ended up getting to the workshop about 20 minutes late, so we missed pretty much all of the explanation of what the significance of ZaZen is, how ZaZen is different from normal Zen, and good practices for meditation. The two of us came in, pretty much when the master was saying "Let's begin".
So we went from being lost and confused, and not at all sure if we were in the right place, to sitting in a tatami mat room staying perfectly still and meditating. We followed everyone else movements. I managed to hold a basic lotus position for 20 minutes, which felt kind of good. As we meditated the sensei paced around the room with a stick. The stick's purpose was not menacing I found out. After about 15 minutes I began to slouch a little, and I suddenly found that stick against my back, with friendly hands pulling my shoulders upwards, thus aiding my posture.
Afterwards there was tea, sweets, and some arts and crafts. It actually felt very much like a church in atmosphere simply with different traditions and teachings, but it was still a community. I was glad I managed to go, and passing through the shadow of night was quite worth it.
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