I seem to be spending a lot of my time retreating lately. In March I lead a retreat in Atlanta, tonight I'll be starting one in South Carolina, a couple weeks after that I'll be leading one in Milwaukee, then it looks like we'll have one in Southern California on Memorial Day (still waiting for confirmation), after that there's the Great Sky Sesshin in August and another sesshin in Japan in September (info for all the upcoming retreats is below). Along with this I did two weeks work practice in Tassajara Zen Monastery in early April and I'll be going back for another two weeks in June. All in all, a whole lot of my year 2008 will be spent retreating.
A few years ago I wrote an article for my webpage called "Retreat!! (Run Away!!)" I just went searching for it and it appears to have been lost in the Internet ether, wherever those things go. I don't seem to have another copy saved. No big deal. It probably sucked ass anyhow.
But I remember that the year I wrote that article my friend Miki couldn't attend the retreat because she was going to the Fuji Rock festival (not that she ever attended any of the retreats anyway, but nevertheless). I was trying to explain why a Zen retreat was different, perhaps (dare I say it???) better than a rock festival — at least if your intention is to find a way to enjoy life more and a way to make the world a nicer place.
Last week I put an article up on Suicide Girls in which I talked about how I felt that retreat centers were a good place to learn how not to waste your life. The article was met by the now tiresomely typical outcry from readers who thought I was the most egotistical asshole in the world to even suggest that a time spent away from society in quiet might be better than frittering away your days looking at titties on the Internet. But titties on the Internet pay my bills, so I can't complain too much. So it goes.
I have found, though, that I have a somewhat different attitude towards retreats and suchlike from a lot of folks in the Buddhist community who I meet at the retreats I attend and run. I think retreats are a great thing. Great. Wonderful. This is why I go on so many of the damned things. However, the real meat and potatoes of Zazen practice does not happen at retreats. The most important Zazen is the Zazen you do every day at home during the course of your real life in the real world.
I've been highly disappointed to discover that this attitude does not seem to be at all commonplace among the kinds of people who like to attend Zen retreats. Much more common is the attitude that one can get all one's Zazen out of the way in a few intensive days (or weeks or months) and then just basically let things slide the rest of the time. I'm really shocked to find that a lot of people who you see at Zen retreats don't have any daily practice at all. I just can't comprehend that. I did daily practice for over ten years before I went on my first retreat. Which is not to say how phenomenal I am. I just mean I wouldn't have considered going on a retreat except as an extension of my already established daily practice.
The other thing I find is that most retreats I attend are a bit too intense. I still do them. I don't think they're necessarily bad. But I do think they sometimes go overboard with practice. See, what happens when you concentrate a whole lot of Zazen into a few days (or weeks or months) is that you can end up feeling very high (insert Towely voice here). You have what appear to be very deep insights into life, the universe and everything and you walk out thinking you're some kind of spiritual superhero.
The problem with such insights is that they fade very quickly in the light of day, like a wonderful dream that you can't quite remember. The more Zazen you try to pack into the smaller number of days the more likely this is to occur. Or, what's worse, is when the ego latches onto that initial "spiritual superhero" feeling and you remain convinced you're God's gift to meditation long after whatever insights you had during your practice intensive have crumbled into dust or been fixed into sharply etched memories that you return to again and again and again. Guys who can manage this often end up making lots of money as spiritual masters. But what they do and say is just a waste of time.
This is why the retreats I lead, the ones where I can set the schedule at least, follow Gudo Nishijima's method of being intentionally quite a bit less intense than what seems to be the norm for Zen retreats. The insights to be had from such a practice are often not quite as deep seeming as those to be had from a very intense schedule. But they last a lot longer and mean a lot more when you re-enter the "normal" world. This, I think, is far more important. Plus, ultimately, these types of low intensity retreats allow you, over time, to actually go deeper into your practice and stay there.
Anyhow, these are just some random thoughts as I get ready for yet another retreat. See ya when I come back!
Here's the upcoming schedule:
April 25 - 27 leading a retreat at Southern Dharma Retreat Center in North Carolina.
April 29th at 7 PM, talk at Warren Wilson College’s Buddhist Studies Group. Also in Asheville, NC.
May 3rd my band 0DFx will play at Pat’s in the Flats in Cleveland with This Moment in Black History and on May 4th, 0DFx will play at the Kent Stage in Kent, Ohio in commemoration of the 38th anniversary of the infamous shootings by the National Guard
Saturday May 10th at 7 PM (or maybe 6, they need to decide yet, call before you go) at Visible Voice Books in Cleveland, Ohio’s Tremont neighborhood. NOTE CHANGE OF DATE!
On May 17th and 18th a 2-day retreat at the Milwaukee Zen Center.
I'll be one of the teachers at this year's Great Sky Zen Sesshin August 9-16. Check out their webpage for details.
The annual Dogen Sangha retreat in Shizuoka, Japan will be September 20-23.
