Years ago I attended a spiritual retreat in western Massachusetts.    The week was devoted to taking a vow of silence.  For a person like me who was vaccinated with a phonograph needle this presented quite a challenge.  Five days of not being able to open your mouth and prattle on about trivial crap was tough.  With the exception of one hour after the evening meal, speaking, whispering, or gesturing was greatly discouraged.  Thank goodness for tiny pencils and 3 x 5 pads of paper!

Ever have your town shut the water off for a couple of hours to make repairs?  What happens?  You want to drink a glass of water.  It’s human nature.  Tell me I can’t do something and I immediately feel the urgency to do it – I crave to do it.  Now imagine five days of sitting meditations, walking meditations, reading meditations, being one with nature in the deep woods, having bugs fall on you, shrieking in fright; fellow no-talkers staring at you in disdain for breaking the code of silence.  Nothing says spiritual growth like pressure from your peer group.

Another thing I struggled with was Zazen meditation.  You’re in a room assigned to a zazen bench.  That’s where your butt is supported by a skinny wooden bench, allowing relief of pressure on bent knees.  The posture is an unwavering erect spine.  The time seems so long in Zazen that some of the students would nod off in a light sleep.  Then you would hear the bang of the Master’s staff on the floor near the offending neophyte – nobody sleeps!

An infamous Koan question is put before you, “What is the meaning of life?”  Your mind strains for the enlightened answer, which does not instill a mind of peace and tranquility but rather of competition and anxiety.  Students would raise their hand to indicate that they had reached a state of Zazen, knowing the answer.  Many times the Master would smile and embrace the student, “That’s correct!” And lucky them, they’d get to leave the room.

Another Koan question is, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”  How about a new question like, “What is the sound of screaming in your head?”

No one can answer a Koan question for you, and even years later I’m still letting the answer unfold like lotus petals.  Koan questions are devised to instill flashes of insights within you – so you realize that the answer just “is”.  That’s the answer.  The meaning of life is life.  Seems like a shell game to me, but there you have it.

Silence + Koan = Zen

Tags: Koan, vow of silence, walking meditations, zazen bench, Zen meditation