Zen Buddhism: My First Sesshin Experience

Ever since I was robbed of everything I owned and then separately betrayed by the person who I thought was my best friend this summer, I've been on a renewed path to spiritual freedom, or as the Buddhists call it "enlightenment." I have been reading many books about Buddhism, Kundalini yoga, paganism, and self-help.

In some of those books, they talk about zazen, an integral part of Zen Buddhism. This is a form of meditation. In pursuit of emotional and spiritual freedom and a desire to truly experience what I'd been reading about, I attended my first sesshin on November 16, 2008 at Hazy Moon Zen Center in Los Angeles. A sesshin is basically an all-day meditation and learning retreat. I have attended other activities at Hazy Moon, Zen Center Los Angeles, and Detroit Street Zen Center and hope to be accepted as a guest student at a California center in the near future.

I have been sitting zazen for a while, but at home. Basically I sit down (at home on a yoga mat, in the "zendo" on a zafu (cushion) and another mat called a zabuton) in a certain position (not unlike yoga) and I place my hands in a certain position (mudra) and stare, gaze unfocused, at a wall. I count my breaths 1 to 10. When my mind wanders, and many times it does, I start the count over.

When I went to Hazy Moon, I didn't know quite what to expect. I sat for a total of 2 hours, in six 20-minute sittings. I walked for about 35 minutes total over four periods in kinhin, a kind of walking meditation where we walk in a circle, gaze and hands lowered, and count our breath mentally.

We also had "dharma talks" and questions and answers about Buddhism, zen, and life. We had social periods where we rested, ate vegetarian foods or drank juice, tea, and water, talked informally, and also saw a demonstration of oryoki. Oryoki is a formal, Japanese style of meditative eating with specific bowls, cloths, and utensils.

I cannot fully explain the deep, profound change in my mind since that sesshin. I have eaten better, and less. I have been less judgmental and quick-tempered. I have focused on my work and creative pursuits with renewed confidence, without a desperate sense of grasping for an ego-fulfilling outcome. Please don't mistake me for being perfect or enlightened; I am neither. And that is finally okay for me to be who I really am, without interference from my own mind.

Perhaps one day I will be able to explain it more fully; perhaps it is learned only through experience. I really see now how my racing mind and attachments have caused me such great, profound suffering. And now I have really experienced a further path to liberation from my own self-created drama, as well as a release from taking on too much of the pain others have caused me.