Sitting in the Cold

Went up north again for a few days. There are some friends with a Zen temple on 40 acres in the mountains up there and it was Sesshin, an intensive retreat session: about nine hours a day of meditation, a little work, a bath, and some food.

The meditation hall, the Zendo, has no heat, so you better dress warm. The day I arrived the trees had all turned, and as you can see from the sky above the weather was just beginning to come in. It snapped that night, and really snapped the next morning.

Two of the temple's five buildings are constructed in somewhat-traditional Japanese joinery style - no nails or metal in the framing - and, inside, exposed, four large tree beams form a rectangle. I slept in one of those buildings in a small never-not-damp, non-heated room. The second night, I pulled out all the bedding: sleeping bag, futon, fleece blanket, faux down blanket, someone's grandmother's blanket with a band of pink at the top cuff and pink flowers dotting the rest. Felt like a mouse.

Sitting that morning in the Zendo I had silk long underwear on, top and bottom, some cotton pants, cotton long-sleeved shirt, wool sweater and then a robe over all of that. At one of the sitting breaks had to go get another sweater. If your spine gets cold, it's over.


So, that was a couple of days. There's a family of deer that basically live on the property, a doe and two yearlings. It's a safe haven, I imagine, from mountain lion country with the people presence. A few years ago, in mating season, I saw a couple of huge-antlered males and their harem of about 10 does. Interesting, walking by the group at this time, you can feel the males checking you out intensely - they're ready to charge. There's real fear there. From about 50 feet away saw two males go at it, antlers locking. Kept imagining that the weaker one would have his neck broken, because the antlers get so tangled that the stronger male basically twists the other around. They fought for a few minutes, and then the weaker one bolted downhill, crashing through the brush.

In one night the huge entrance oak tree lost most of its leaves. And two somewhat-straggly turkeys wandered a bare, grassy hillside.

So, this trip was full of sitting and apt Zen aphorisms:

Clouds sweep the vast sky, a crane nests in the moon;
This piercing cold has gotten into my bones - I cannot sleep.

He stops his carriage just to enjoy the sunset in the maples,
Whose frost-bitten leaves are redder than spring flowers.

When alive, your wealth is the dew on the grass;
After death, your fame is the flowers by the roadside.

Riding the great dragon in the shadow of a needle's point,
With ease I knock down the moon from the heavens.

North, south, east, west - no road penetrates.
Iron mountains rise sheer before you with their awesome crags.

The ten thousand mountains cannot keep away the moon tonight,
A crescent of pure light, bright beyond measure.

Where the snow lies deep, crows are silently stirring.
From clouded peaks far away, a winter wind returns.

The great Master Baso was seriously ill.
He said: "Sun-faced Buddha, Moon-faced Buddha."