Recently I鈥檝e become aware of another aspect of this beautiful, centuries-old Zen form: the period of time leading up to the 8-day December intensive called Rohatsu. The opportunity afforded by preparing for this annual retreat, even if not attending it myself, is stellar.
I live with my husband and best friend, Doshu, who like me, is a priest with Zenwest Buddhist Society. He鈥檚 always taken life a bit more seriously than I. Whereas I participated in several spiritual groups before really settling in to Zen, he seemed to know right from the start back in the late 70鈥檚 that this was the path for him.
So, when we moved to the North Island to raise our small family, I joined the Sointula Women鈥� s Healing Circle, and he found a spot in the woods to build an outdoor zendo, a meditation space.
The women in the healing circle pooled our spiritual and healing knowledge, shared our life鈥檚 joys and tragedies, fought, hurt each other, learned, deepened our connections, and grew in wisdom and love. For many years of challenging emotional and spiritual growth, I am so grateful to my Sointula sisters.
All the while Doshu continued to meditate daily in our home or at his wilderness zendo. Every year he would fly to Toronto for week-long meditation intensives and come home more open, present, and alive.
It wasn鈥檛 until I joined Zenwest and experienced week-long sesshin practice myself, that I began to understand the depth of work possible. Doshu had been willingly saying goodbye not only to us, his family, but his old self, opening to the possibility of dropping his persona in the safety of sesshin, dropping years of emotional baggage and coming back to this family a different person really. Now, after many more sesshins, when he returns he comes back to a family that understands the potential for transformation, a family that tries to give him space, and watches the new person emerge, without immediately locking him back into the habitual call-and-response of somewhat dysfunctional family interactions.
Every time he goes away to sesshin, I observe his preparation. He doubles down on sleep and rest in the weeks before. He increases his daily meditation time. Already leading a mindful life with few distractions, he slows down, cuts his screen time, goes for long walks. He has already begun to quiet his mind, so that the lack of normal distractions in sesshin, rather than being a shock, will aid a smooth transition to a deeper experience.
Sesshin is a method that has been honed over thousands of years. It is a perfect mirror for the mind 鈥� so that if you party right up to day 1, your experience will be excruciating. If, however, you prepare the heart and mind, your experience is more likely to be one of going to the well for nourishment.
Recently I鈥檝e had a mundane yet powerful example in my life of the importance of preparing the heart and mind in this way. I just happened to get into the habit of reading gardening books on a daily basis. I love flowers and plants so I took 5 minutes every day out of my somewhat busy life to read and dream about plants for my garden.
I thought I would improve my garden, and I found instead, after about 6 months, that I hadn鈥檛 moved on to action, but significantly, I was actually seeing and experiencing plants differently. I was enjoying not just the individual plants, but the contrasting shapes of the plants around me. I began noticing when two or three plants looked extremely well together, enjoying colour gradients and the effect of plants en mass and in relation to each other. There are so many beautiful shades of green! 聽I enjoy plants even more now than I thought possible.
From this simple experience I take an important lesson; our habit patterns have the effect of conditioning the heart and mind. It has become crucial to me to take stock of how my mental energies are spent.
Which experiences are helping me on my spiritual path? Which every day influences are perhaps more seriously detrimental than I thought?
If the simple act of reading about plants a few minutes a day could transform my perception of the plant world in 6 months, then I have to wonder, what would be the transformative effect of reading something uplifting on a daily basis, or not reading at all, or of slowing down, of rationing my screen time, meditating a little more each day and actually coming home to my life more often?
Soshin McMurchy聽is a former North Islander, a priest with Zenwest Buddhist Society,聽, and serves as the Buddhist Chaplain with the University of聽Victoria Multifaith Services. She works part-time at the Greater Victoria聽Public Library and lives in Victoria with her partner of 39 years.
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