Zen is not funny

After sitting, especially with my sangha, I just want to talk and talk and talk. I want to talk the way I want to pound organic cheese doodles after an exam. Want to get my mouth full of talk, want to hear what everybody's doing, want the silence filled with rattle.

I can tell this drives Seido nuts.

I finally made it zazen at his house Sunday morning. We were left overstaffed, courtesy of the nimrods on the night shift, and someone had to be sent home, so I volunteered. I needed a break. I'd been taking care of patient from the local commune, the Ashanti Pilgrim True God Congregation. And, don't get me wrong, they were very nice, but they don't wear deodorant and they have a tendency to stand about six inches from you and ask questions almost nonstop. The men wear long homespun robes and the women wear the same thing, but wear their hair back in braids. They're very sweet and simple and pure and they all have the most blissful expressions on their faces. One of our nurses lives out on the commune in a house made of plastered straw bales, but she dresses like the rest of us--even to her swingy assymetrical haircut. I just know about her commune connection because we both get raw milk illegally from the same guy. So, after taking care of this guy for two weeks, I was ready for a break. It was 0830. I hunted through my email searching for the time zazen was held Sunday, but couldn't find the email. So I called Seido.

He was asleep. "Who is this." he sort of slurred into the phone.

"It's Haley. Were you asleep?"

"Yes."

Shit, I think. Who's still asleep at 0830? Oh, okay, a college professor who lives alone and works during the week. That's who.

"1030," he tells me. "Zazen is at 1030. See you then."

Seido's new place is a lot smaller than the other that he shared with his wife, but it still has the same aesthetic. It's not as clean. Full of color, full of books and his paintings, a pot with miniature roses, tchotchkes that seem to have some meaning. It reminds me a lot of my house, actually.

He's taken the dining room and turned it into a sitting room. A black curtain separates it from the rest of the house. About 45 minutes into the session, he rings the bell and everyone stands up. Then several people, one after another, bow and leave the room. Thinking this is part of the ritual that I'm not familiar with, I do the same. Not everyone leaves the room. Some remain standing in front of their cushions. Outside, in the main room, several are milling about, hands folded, not speaking to each other. One will go into a back room, then come back out, and another will take their turn. I step into the empty room after it's vacated, but it's just that: an empty spare bedroom. I can't fathom why we're coming in here. I look around, take a breath, and go back into the formal sitting room. Everyone else is back, standing, eyes cast down in front of their cushions. Then Seido rings the bell and we sit back down and finish our session. It starts to blow outside. It's 13 degrees. Seido's new place is close to the highway and we can hear the rush of traffic. But then the wind chimes start. And I breathe, and the chimes ring, and finally, my mind is still, filled only with the breathing chimes.

The bell rings.

Seido says, "there is nothing I can say about zen that the wind chimes haven't already said." But he goes on to talk about YuMin. He reads a story, and Sara and I both laugh. "It's not funny!" He says. "It seems funny, but it's not. " He goes on to explain that the incidents described have to be understood in context and that they were targeted to specific monks, monks who were known well by the master and who were at a particular place in their development. He told us that his own teacher had been very kind to him during the first years of his practice, but had grown much harsher as time had passed. "I don't hit babies." He had told Seido. Seido told us about his friend, Gento, who developed bone marrow cancer, and who would emerge from his sessions with his teacher toward the end of his life, weeping. Zen is serious stuff. It's not funny.

We emerge from the session. Sara, who is a lot older than me, and attends with her husband, starts talking to me. We both chatter as if we need to speak to breathe. Seido stands silently in his robes, as we put on our coats and boots, rocking slightly back and forth, grimacing. I suddenly realize that he desperately wants us out the door.
"Oh, here we are, just rattling away. I'm sorry. When I'm quiet too long, I just need to talk and talk and talk."
Sara grabs my arm. "Me, too! I feel that way, too!"
"Chicks, man," Seido says, and ushers the three of us out the door.
Outside, I ask them, "What were we supposed to do in that empty room? The one everyone took turns going into?"
"Oh," Howard, her husband says, "the bathroom's through there. He always gives us a break in the middle of the session."