Now two weeks out from the conclusion of my intensive live in training, I felt the urge to share a bit of my experience. Usually a prolific writer, I would’ve expected to have filled pages of my journal with insights on all that I have experienced in my time here, and surprisingly, there were no words. I felt it more suiting to simply be present, fully.
The days were long, and the nights, short, and every waking moment, filled with insights and valuable learnings. Here, we built our own little quarantine bubble, varying from 8-9 individuals, training hard, in search for Shugyo. While the outside world felt chaotic, we were shielded from it all, battling our own internal turmoil. I don’t mean to be overly dramatic because this is truly what we all came here to do, knowingly or unknowingly, it was a matter of life and death for many of us.
When I was asked to submit a statement of intent during the application process, I honestly did not know what was available to me at Chozen-ji. Zen training through the body, martial arts, fine arts, seemed straight forward enough and valid reasons to want to commit to the intensive program and yet I knew there was an opportunity to dive deeper. I stated in my letter of intent a desire for a sharper focus, a deeper purpose, and to find a more meaningful life, a more truthful way to be of service to others. How was zen training going to lead me here, I wondered? And now I understand, so much so that I now want to commit further to deeper training, and extending my stay.
And while I have trained hard in Kendo, ceramics, boxing, I am by no means a decent sword fighter, or have I even made a piece of pottery worth firing in the kiln, and I still have a hard time catching my breath during our boxing training. But what my training has brought out in me, are behaviors that translate in all areas of my life, such as finding an opening and taking it, without hesitation, creating an opening, if there are none to be found, how to hold my psycho-spiritual stance in a way to convey my strength, how to follow through with a move, or decision, and how my breath affects all that I do.
These lessons however valuable, there was one lesson proving to be the most valuable. One night, during one of our post-Kendo class gatherings out on the engawa, the Abbott asked all of us what we wanted to do with our lives post training. My fellow live-ins each expressed honorable goals and desires of expansion and growth, and when it was my turn to share, my response was “Nothing. I want to be able to do nothing.” It was a knee-jerk, honest response as I was tired of pursuing a life of what society sees as successful. A wider reach, more clients, greater work, more, more, more. I honestly wanted to be able to do nothing.
I started to realize through the training that this became the hardest thing to do. I already knew how to fight hard, work hard, train hard. Long days were not unfamiliar to me, a tired body was all too common. I was the eldest in our group and often I found myself to be the first to get up to do things. And slowly, I was told by my teachers to put things down, let others do things first, go to bed early, take more breaks, stay behind from the big hiking trails, go spend time with your family. And I resisted. Give me the big rocks, let me stay up late, I want to climb the mountain too, ok, maybe I will take those breaks while sword fighting. But as each day passed, I understood more deeply the significance of what I have to now offer. And how doing nothing can actually be even more valuable than doing something. But somewhere towards the end of the 3 and half months or so, I felt how my well rested presence held an energetic vibration that helped to elevate all those around me, how I brought peace to a room, removed anxious energy, made others calm so they may focus on their tasks, or to even train harder. I was sharper, steadier, and present.
While everyone’s training looked different and as my training partners stayed up late nights gaining mastery, I learned of a different path, the path of doing and not doing. I have not yet mastered the not doing thing for that is still doing something. And so my training continues. Until I can fully embody this, or as they say here, doing nothing and everything is done, Shugyo continues.