“It’s much easier to be spiritual than to be emotionally authentic.”
—Dr. Gabor Mate
In no time I’m put to work
did I ever leave?
six years since Dad died five
since my last sesshin
[traditionally, a six day Zen
meditation retreat this
one was four days] two
acres the farm’s nestled in
a small, idyllic valley conifers
surround the property
define its limits
steep slope
ideal for drainage
permaculture
fresh organic produce
an annual and well-attended seed
exchange in the spring
music festival every summer
wwoofers work the land for
room and board
longer-term, more formal
apprenticeships offered
for people
serious about farming
the zendo [meditation
hall]: an elegant two-storied
building north side of the
property base of a large hill
french doors open
into the ground floor foyer from the exterior
a staircase directly in front of the foyer leads
to the practice space upstairs, it
doubles as a yoga studio and dance facility
halfway up the staircase a short
corridor on the right leads to a private room
used for dokusan [private
interview] the ground floor spacious
good storage
moderate-sized bathroom
shower insert
open-area boot room with
benches
coat hooks line the walls
shelves above for hats, gloves and scarves floors
gently heated with large square
earthenware tiles
second floor
full-height windows
doors line the west wall
an expansive deck steps
run its width descend to
the lower level of the zendo
in the practice space
light streams through six skylights
full-height windows on the east wall
the room holds forty people comfortably
chairs in the back for those
unable to sit on a
cushion
knot-free old growth fir floors gleam
some thirty steps from
the zendo entrance
in a lush grassy field
an elder willow rests
hidden in branches
a bonshō sounds every day
in the pitch black before dawn
practice period
begins
beside the zendo
a spacious, cob-construction
fruit and vegetable stand
a vibrant flower stall in the spring
a slate path from the zendo
leads to a gravel road
in the evening garden
lights line the road
cast a soft amber glow
go up the road to
the barn
massive, traditional Amish
main floor
three washrooms
commercial-sized kitchen
common area used to supply snacks
& tea for retreat participants
ample benches
for sangha [community of
practitioners] to spend time
in silent contemplation
during sesshin
2nd floor
dining area
seats at least a hundred
each end of the barn fully
paned with thick glass
floor to ceiling
six meters at its peak
light pours in
even on moody days
floors
old-growth Douglas Fir
selectively culled
milled on-site
down the slope
three detached yurts
between barn and
zendo
four circular rental residences join
in a clover formation
cordwood walls
grass roofs
communal bathrooms
heated floors concrete
tiles dyed a deep, matte
pastel red
***
the zendo lights are low as
the sangha files into
the meditation hall
before dawn
black zafus [round
meditation cushions] and
zabutons [square padded mats
underneath each zafu] evenly
spaced around the room
perimeter
robins not yet awake
just the still predawn
the occasional tree frog pierces
through the silence, a sleeve
lightly brushes a pant
leg, there’s
light breathing and—
BONNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG….
the bonshō
fills the space struck
repeatedly, until
finally the singing
bowl in the zendo cries out in return
much higher pitched, increases its rhythm until
with one last resounding strike
it rings through time and space
fades
all is silence once more
seat
knees and hips
back and chest
hands
eyes
chin
relax
Breathe, keep breathing
Don’t lose your nerve
Breathe, keep breathing
I can’t do this alone
—Radiohead, “Exit Music (for a film)”
tension in the shoulders
tension in the mind
on and on it goes
hours and days
gongs, gasshos [a bow palms
together, bend at the waist] solemn
chanting moments of rapture
moments of furious hell, soft rain
wind, sun, day, night, we sit in solidarity
we sit as though our lives depend on it, and maybe they do
***
Like children, we assemble on our cushions before the teacher. The posture is loose-casual. Some practitioners choose to lean against the wall to give their legs a break. Others have their legs outstretched in front, or crossed limply, or they hug their knees. Some who are normally seated in full lotus opt to place their cushions between their legs in the traditional seiza posture.
It’s a glorious afternoon. The sun’s soft rays warm up the space. The windows are open and a cool breeze freshens the room. Robins and blackbirds sing and you can hear children play near the barn. A circular saw makes intermittent cuts in the distance, where a new barn’s being built. The occasional raven chortles. When the wind picks up, the willow branches rustle outside.
“Many of you who sit with me regularly will have heard this already…” Théo examines his audience over his reading glasses, looks down, pauses reflectively, and lifts his head up again. “…But for the benefit of those who have not, you should know that I recently got a puppy!” He beams. Everyone laughs, he loudest of all. He shakes his head; he can’t believe it. A couple of people go “Awww….”
“And as so many of you know, if you scream or yell at a puppy or shame it, you don’t change its behaviour for the better! You have to gently remind it about what’s considered proper conduct. You bring the puppy around with loving-kindness, not violence.” A few people nod in agreement.
Théo looks up in shock: “It’s just like zazen!” There’s a chorus of mmmms, nods of affirmation, gasps of exaltation. It’s astounding! He looks out and grins broadly, astounded as his grey eyes eat up the sky, hands outstretched, until he brings palms together in gassho and everyone does the same.
“He’s only six weeks old, this puppy.”
“Aawwww…” says Freya. “What kind?”
“Black lab-Rotweiler cross.” Freya nods.
“What’s his name?”
“Wwoofer.”
Laughter.
“But it’s not spelled w-o-o-f like a dog woofing, it’s spelled ‘w-woof,’ w-w-o-o-f, like the good wwoofers who work and play and sleep on this farm.
“The same people who prepare us this bountiful food! Can you believe this food?” A chorus of mmmms and nods again. And it’s true; the food is amazing, even more so due to its being consumed as part of oriyoki practice.
There’s nothing about oriyoki (a meditative, ritualized form of eating—particularly in the Zen Sōtō tradition—using nested bowls, chopsticks and a cleaning utensil) that isn’t intense; how can it not be, when actually getting the food onto your plate, let alone into your mouth, is the least time-consuming part of the process?
There are the three bowls: the largest for the vegetarian main, the second generally for some sort of dessert such as yogurt with fruit, and the third strictly to dispose of any excess broth used to clean the other two bowls.
The only liquid you can drink during the meal is the broth used to clean all three serving bowls after everyone’s finished eating. You clean the bowls with the tsetsu, a small spatula designed expressly for this purpose. God forbid you add too much yeast powder as a topping on your brown rice, swallow it too quickly and choke. When you’re that hungry, it’s a real hazard; mindful eating becomes a safety measure.
Once the first two bowls have been cleaned, dried and centered on the serviette, place your spoon and chopsticks on top, but make sure they point to the left. Then you can drink your broth. Should you choose not to drink it, the broth goes into the large bowl that is then passed down the line. Remember to point your bowl away from you as you dispose of your liquid; then reciprocate by holding the bowl for the person facing you across the table and pass the bowl down the line. Afterwards, once everyone’s eaten, the nutritious stock is fed to the trees outside the kitchen. Don’t forget all the gasshoes. Gassho. Gassho. Gassho. GASSHO! It’s gasshoes all the way down.
And then there’s the serviette, in which you place your bowls. When everyone’s eaten, you fold the serviette in a series of precise steps to turn it into a lotus flower. I take the remedial class for that one; the subtleties elude me in the large group demonstration and practice.
It’s a dream world—and sometimes more specifically a nightmare—for people with OCD; every detail is accounted for.
***
My first time at sesshin. I arrive in the early afternoon by bicycle and am invited to sweep the front entrance of the zendo by Owen, the tanto [retreat manager] until the retreat officially begins. It gives me something to do, and I enjoy sweeping—after all, when I worked in construction I swept apartments almost every day for two months, usually with Abdul, the Libyan with one green and one blue eye, and Alexey, an Armenian—a plant supervisor in his home country with an engineering background, now relegated to labour work as a Canadian immigrant.
The bonshō sounds and the retreat participants mindfully (of course) hang up their jackets, remove their hats and shoes and file upstairs to the meditation hall. We sit for one practice period. I’m immediately impressed by the discipline of the sangha. Compared with Sangri-la, the practice is far more regimented. Walking meditation is one-fifth the pace of Sangri-la; just imagine walking in slow-slo-mo; extra slow. We make it around three quarters of the room in ten minutes.
The forms are elegant and beautiful, and surprisingly familiar—though I’m also completely lost at times; in particular not knowing any of the chants, or what happens next even in general.
After we chant we cover off housekeeping details, and coordinate rides for the billets at the retreat, of which I am one. Only twenty-four hours before my arrival, due to what we’ll call a clerical error, it’s discovered that I don’t have a place to stay. Théo calls me directly, graciously apologizes for the error and invites me to stay in his study, a modest studio beside Maser Lake in the middle of the forest.
“Is there anything I can do to help you feel installed?” I look at the kitchen table, where a muffin rests in a plastic container. “I thought you might be hungry. When I saw that you came here by bicycle, I bought you a muffin.” I smile. I’m starved.
“Thank you very much!”
“Is there anything else that you need before I leave? Did you want more to eat?”
“No, I don’t think so, I have some power bars, but thanks again for everything, and I’m sorry for any inconvenience it’s caused.”
“No, no, nononono. No inconvenience. Well, good night then.” We gassho and Théo goes back to the main house for the evening.
Born in Detroit to Haitian immigrant parents, an impassioned poet and now Zen priest, Théo Hitomu (“Single Dream”) Aristide, ordained as Abbot and Head Teacher in the Order of the Broken Heart, settled on Cameron Island during the Reagan years and pledged to build a sangha from the ground up.
Beside the bed—a double futon on a simple platform frame—is a bookshelf. The vast majority of the books are about Zen, with smatterings of Jingpa Lhawang and other Tibetan authors, English translations of Chan and Pali scripture, some Don Cupitt and Thomas Merton. In a mad fury, I write every title in the shelf into my notebook and later create a document called “Théo’s bookshelf.”
I go back in the kitchen and wolf down the muffin at a small table underneath a window that looks out onto the lake, impossible to see in the darkness. I’m exhausted from my ride and this adventure into the unknown. In bed, I set my alarm for 4:30 AM, breathe the cool, limnic air, and fall into a deep sleep as tree frogs call out into the night.
I wake in terror with an erection to the sound of my alarm in the pitch blackness of the room, my arms trapped in my sleeping bag and for a brief instant, no comprehension of where I am. Total panic. The sound of tree frogs fills the blackness as I try to calm my racing heart, take a deep breath, grab a tissue from the box next to the bed and jerk off urgently; the exact opposite of mindful masturbation. I can’t close my eyes and stay here, I’ll fall asleep again. I have to get up. So get up I do. The cool air toys with my hardon as I shiver and pull on my comfy clothes and eat a power bar to prepare for a marathon day of doing fuck all.
It’s too early for the loons, but three deer graze on the grass as I walk up the path, until they notice my presence and spring away at lightning speed, the sound of their hoofs trailing off as they disappear into the woods.
The stars are unbelievable; it’s a completely clear night. As I make my way to the front of the house, Théo hurries out the door and barks at his wife Helen in Haitian patois. Whatever’s happening, it doesn’t sound good.
“Good morning, how are you? Please, get in the car. Did you sleep all right?” Helen smiles, her jaw clenched.
“I did, thank you.” I gassho, get in and Helen follows. Helen drives as Théo speaks to her animatedly. I can’t understand a word, but between the two of them, Helen’s the one who keeps her cool. This is a Zen master?
We pull into the parking lot among others who are also arriving, file in, hang up our coats, climb the stairs, gassho at the entrance to the practice space and assume our positions in silence as the bonshō sounds. The morning session is beautiful as the sun softly rises and birds wake up to the day. Their voices reach a crescendo as the sun illuminates the sky, not a cloud in sight, just the blue that has magically transformed before our eyes from pitch blackness, so slowly you don’t even realize it’s happening.
Just hanging out, that’s what I tell myself, in between the moments of complete boredom, anxiety, total bliss, doubt, confusion, lust, etc. Just another day examining the old noggin. Not that that’s the point.
At 6:45 AM, we bow out. There are ten minutes before we eat. I’m famished from all the calories I burned the day before. I discretely pull a power bar from my bike pannier and wolf it down. Some people linger and stretch. Conveniently, there’s a barre against the full-length mirrored back wall of the hall, used for ballet. I follow a group of people who file their way downstairs and head to the barn to explore. The property’s pastoral, with a stone wall following the length of the road on one side, a peaceful meadow with a tractor shelter and large wood-frame utility shed on the other.
There’s a handful of people in front of me, but I’m still among the early birds outwardly looking forward to the prospect of food.
As per the zendo, the ground floor of the barn is adorned with coat hooks, benches, a hat-and-glove shelf, and heated tiles. Boots are neatly placed under the bench, or go outside the door if there’s no more room inside. The clang of pots and pans can be heard in the kitchen. The space is warm and the air smells like oatmeal and cinnamon.
When the bonshō rings for breakfast, everyone lines up in their socks and passes by a table where each person has a serviette folded into quarters with their name written on a piece of tape.
With a gassho from the resident attendant, we’re motioned to enter the kitchen and serve ourselves food. We can sit anywhere upstairs. Being one of the first to line up, I sit at a table among the first to arrive.
After four full days, you accept that it actually doesn’t matter when you show up for food, so long as you’re not late—since no one starts until everyone has sat down anyways. And even once everyone’s sat down, you don’t eat right away, first you chant. What’s incredible to me is how dialed in you can get by the end of five days. Once everyone’s had a few practice runs, they know what to expect and they get better at it. That’s when you start to appreciate what sangha can mean. And practice. Everyone understands exactly what to do; everyone’s in unison. A kind of group synchronization occurs as the choreography improves. Flow.
Théo stands.
“Friends, thank you for being here. Before we begin, I’d like to share a teaching that was passed down to me by my teacher. Please remain in gassho for the entirety of the teaching.” We all bow our heads, palms together.
“Oriyoki is a very important practice for me. As you can see, we’ve been graced with this beautiful breakfast, as though it appeared out of thin air for us. But many, many people—and nonhuman presences—have contributed to this meal.
Let us be mindful of the effort and intention that was put into growing the necessary grains for these oats, the feeding of the chickens and regular egg collection, the people who pick, transport, wash, and cut the fruit…the list goes on. We literally depend on them. Think about that.
We thank the farmers who work directly with our Earth Mother, gaia, the collective life force that is the science and poetry of this planet—to cultivate and nourish the soil, and to grow this food with rain and sunlight.
All of these forces are bodhisattvas, living out their dharmic existence for all eternity in service to life. For this we practice gratitude, in awe and wonder of the planet, the moon circling us while we twirl around the sun in some mysterious dance.
All of this is in your food. Please be mindful of this teaching during oriyoki practice.”
Finally, we get down to business. Jesus, I could sure use a coffee…
Instead, nothing to drink. I have large-flake oatmeal with apples and brown sugar, fruit salad with yogurt, and a hard-boiled egg.
When it comes to the egg, which I save for last, I don’t know what to do. Crack it on the edge of the table? Use my knife? Is there a special way to eat hard-boiled eggs at sesshin? I haven’t eaten a hard-boiled egg in years.
How old am I? Four years old? I crack open the egg in the cup and it’s somehow a big deal that we’re eating these things, but it takes patience to pull the shell away from the egg with a tablespoon, and you just want to scream and throw your egg, and it’s kind of pasty ‘cause it’s overcooked, and Mom pours too much salt on them, and heart disease runs in the family and I know this.
Meanwhile, back in the present, I try to subtly peer at other people’s plates to see what they’re doing with their eggs, but no one’s eating them. Is there a reason? My heart rate increases and I begin to flush. They know. Finally, Théo grabs a knife and thwack thwack thwacks his egg, which cracks the shell. He holds the egg with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand and peels off the outer layer with his right.
***
Dharma talk. “I think we should all gassho the cook, Pam, who is not here with us because she’s busy preparing supper right now.”
Gasshos all around.
“…We practice gratitude for the food that we will receive, and because we spend time in this strong, vibrant farm community…” Soft light shines on Théo’s face from the window nearest where he’s installed, behind the altar, sitting in full lotus, the shrine behind him. He stares out the window into the distance. Cumulous clouds drift slowly through the sky as we all listen to the breeze rustle in the elder willow’s leaves just outside the window, bamboo wind chimes further off in the distance, towards the barn.
“What about Wwoofer?” asks Owen, and ruins the moment.
Laughter.
“Oh Wwoofer! That’s right, Wwoofer!” He laughs louder than anyone else, face red; “I forgot all about him!”
More laughter.
“So Wwoofer flops around all over the place, tries to bite my feet first thing when I wake up and go to give him some food, and you know, he’s definitely a tripping hazard!”
Laughter. In fact, at one point Stella had three clients in her facility who all sustained injuries from tripping over their dogs or a variation thereof.
“…And it’s first thing in the morning, and I stand up to put on my slippers and he grabs one of the slippers in his mouth and starts to flail around like this,” Théo grits his teeth and shakes his head vigorously from left to right to left to right causing us all to laugh. “Grrrrr…”
He stands up and moves from behind the altar. “And I take the slipper from him, but gently,” he speaks in a near-whisper and bends into a crouch, “…Because I don’t want him to chomp down on it and think we’re playing a game, so I smile at him and I say, ‘Yes, good boy Wwoofer, give me the slipper, that’s a good boy.’”
Théo smiles and nods, hand outstretched, as though the puppy’s in front of him. “And I pet him, and take the slipper, and he looks up at me and he wags his tail and his tongue lolls around as the dog thinks, ‘I have no idea what this guy wants me to do.’”
Laughter.
“And then I go and grab the other slipper and he does the same thing, and I smile at him and gently take the slipper, and say again, ‘Good boy, give me the slipper,’ and he looks at me, and wags his tail, and you can tell he thinks, ’—I have no idea…’ A couple of voices chime in for the chorus this time around ‘…what this guy wants me to do.’”
Laughter.
“It’s just like our minds!”
We’re stopped in our tracks; some people nod. “All it takes is for someone to sneeze, or to hear a fly trapped in one of the window screens, or the sound of the children playing outside, or the crack of the floorboards, and we’re off on our next adventure, and we no longer even realize at that time that we’re actually in this room!”
Owen slams his hand on the floor. The sound of the smack briefly echoes throughout the space.
Long, full and poignant silence,
“Or maybe it’s the opposite— all of a sudden, some other distraction registers with us consciously, maybe it’s the sound of the gate opening, or a raven, or the sound of raindrops on the roof or a car drives by, and we’re back! And that’s the Dharma! Everything can be a teaching—Anything can wake us up! Just as mysteriously as we leave, we’re suddenly back in our bodies again.
“And in those moments that we notice our breath, we become the breath—because we always were, we always are, it’s just that now we realize it—even if we’ve realized it before, because it’s all the same moment anyways—but we forget, and obsess about the past and worry about the future. When we’re one with the breath, in that moment we experience…the absence of separation. There is no longer any outside or inside, no past or future, no time. The breath is neither outside nor inside of us—it’s both and neither, and words become meaningless. ” Many nod.
Silence. Reflection.
***
“You know your puppy?” I ask Théo in dokusan, “And how it stares at you and you can tell it has no idea what you want it to do?” He gives a deep nod. “I feel like that puppy all the time.” He nods again, looks down at the floor and raises his eyebrows. “I have no idea what’s going on.”
“Yes.” His eyes are downturned. “None of us really know what’s going on.” he shakes his head and smiles.
“I walk home from work quite often, and I listen to a lot of Miles Fleischer Buddhist recovery podcasts, you know, Zen Day by Day…” he nods again, but this time leans in. The creases in his heavy robes shift slightly, his brow furrows in anticipation. “And every once in a while he asks the question, ‘What is going on?’ And I always laugh out loud when he says that, because the question resonates so strongly with me….it’s one of the reasons that I always seem to come back to Zen. You know, the Great Doubt and all…” I wave my hand dismissively. He gives me a penetrating stare.
“You probably know that I know Miles…” I nod. “He comes up here sometimes with his wife, and Helen and I hang out with them. The last time he joined us, I sat on a log with Miles looking out at the water,” he stares off in the distance and pauses. “And he turned to me and said, ‘You know Théo, we didn’t do so bad for two kids growing up in Detroit.’ And it’s true.” He nods to himself.
***
“But isn’t it incredible?” His eyes gleam. “We breathe in oxygen, produced by plants, fed by the rain and the soil and the sun and the clouds, and we exhale carbon dioxide and give it back to the atmosphere, and somehow this delicate balance between all sentient beings on the planet is maintained.
Except when it’s not.” He points with his finger for emphasis. “That’s where we come in.” He laughs, as do many among us uncomfortably.
“There seems to be this little problem that we have…” More laughter. “…Where evolution has hard-wired a fight or flight response into our genetic makeup, which has seen an acceleration of wars declared against ourselves and against our environment—through many different means, such as poaching, overfishing, acid rain, the ozone hole, monocrop agriculture, resource extraction, the industrial-military complex…but you know all this, right?
Well here’s what you might not know. Right here, right now, your actions make a difference. When you practice peace, you practice the Dharma. There is no difference. And through the practice of the Dharma, you increase the value of the Peace Index!”
Laughter.
“We’re in competition with Wall Street!”
More laughter.
“We’re all bodhisattvas, whether we realize it or not. It takes great compassion, just to live in this world. There’s so much heartbreak, but it’s also so glorious.” Théo looks outside, then at the assembly. “And so precious.” He turns to the window again and extends a hand. “The trees are bodhisattvas, and the clouds are bodhisattvas, and the sun is a bodhisattva. And out of their boundless compassion, we are born and sustained, nourished by their bounty.
Have you ever considered the actual odds of everything happening exactly the way it has? Never mind the chances of your coming into existence at all, what about the chances of walking into a zendo? Of being human and presented with the Dharma?”
Some people shake their heads in awe, or nod.
“The Dharma teaches us to always stay in the present, which most of the time is actually completely, utterly normal and mundane, and entirely forgettable. Nothing special. These non-events are also the most precious moments of our lives, where peace can be found. We should try to pay attention to them. Learn from them. Which reminds me of something I wanted to say.”
He pauses and scans the room. A handsome, clean-shaven man with silver hair, probably in his sixties, stares reflectively out the window.
“At breakfast: if you have a hard-boiled egg, and you want to crack it, it’s simple—you just crack it.”
Laughter.
“You make more noise in silence when you worry about how you’re supposed to crack your egg, than if you actually just….crack the egg. Nothing special.” I learn later that on that first day with the egg, I am seated at a table with all of the senior members of the sangha, and don’t know any of them.
“What are the chances? With all the people who’ve tried meditation—any form of meditation—how many stick with it, through the thick and the thin, year after year, through love, sickness and death, to call this their practice? Their personal calling, for the benefit of all sentient beings? It’s a miracle that the Dharma gets transmitted at all!
And yet, we know that there is an unbroken lineage that goes all the way back to the First Patriarch, Bodhidharma, and before him the Chinese masters, and before them Mahakashyapa, the Buddha’s first disciple, he to whom the unspoken teaching was first transmitted.
Thanks to this unbroken lineage, we all have the means to realize our true nature, the practice of peace, of nonduality and compassion through the teachings. Don’t you agree?”
I still sit with this question. And even after all these years, I still don’t know.
***
“How are you finding it?” Théo asks me in our first dokusan.
“It’s…interesting…” He waits for me to elaborate.
“Is that some Canadian thing, where you’re too apologetic to actually say when you don’t like something? I mean, I’m honestly asking the question.”
“No, no, it’s not that, it’s not like that at all. It’s not that I don’t like it. It’s just that…I decide to attend sesshin, and I make plans to get here, and now, here I am! Like, how does that even happen?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know…” Théo whispers. “It’s all so mysterious…” There’s a pause for mystery.
“What about all the chanting? How do you find that?” He seems almost anxious.
“It’s pretty straightforward…I messed up a few times.” He shrugs.
“Have you been on meditation retreats before?”
“Yeah…” I’m playing hard to get.
“How many?”
“I dunno, maybe five or six weekend retreats.”
“Oh! In what tradition?” His interest is piqued.
“Sangri-La.” I respond, embarrassed.
“How did you find out about this sesshin?”
“I read about it on the Vancouver Island Buddha Blog.”
He looks at me and smiles, fascinated. “I had no idea there even was such a thing.”
He eyes me curiously. “Francis, do you have any questions for me?”
“Well…” Sometimes it’s so hard to find the right words. “Can I get like…cross-curricular credits for having taken the Refuge Vow in Sangri-La? I mean, is that even acknowledged in Zen?”
“No, that’s not how it works…” his jaw tightens, he smiles and shakes his head.
“Why not?” I’m genuinely curious.
“What about the precepts?” he snaps.
It’s been my primary koan ever since.
Graphically Inclined 
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