My first visit to a zendo at Kanzeon Zen Center...

[noalivishnu]

Me: In Front of the Kanzeon Zen Center in SLC

Well, I went to the Kanzeon Zen Center today. It was quite different than I suspected it would be, far more homely. The center is made up of three or four adjoining homes that all serve different functions. I was surprised how 'at home' I felt there. It's the exact sort of atmosphere that I prefer, where in any given room there are a hodge podge mixture of paintings, Japanese calligraphy, Buddha statues, trinkets, and colors. A very lived-in feeling.

The structure of the service was a 30-minute sitting meditation starting at 10am. The sitting room was filled with mats and sitting cushions, where each mat had a cushion on it. And along the wall there were a number of chairs lined up. I sat on a cushion around 25 minutes before 10am, and the room was fairly empty. By 10am, the room was filled up.

At 10am someone rang the bell, Genpo Roshi Merzel sat in his designated spot, and then the room simply sat in silence for 30 minutes. It was strange to meditate in this environment. I've meditated in busy public spaces before, but not in a space where the entire room was meditating. After I calmed my own thoughts, I simply tuned into the room and noticed the various vibrations of meditators. I found myself distracted by trying to notice which people were emanating which vibrations, so at one point I just closed my eyes. When I closed my eyes, it became much easier for me to just sit and enjoy the vibrations without my mind interfering by trying to figure out where things were coming from.

Then the bell rang again, and it was time for a one-hour discussion about whatever people had questions about. I'm told that today's session was actually quite unusual, in that Genpo Roshi normally facilitates a Big Mind session for this one-hour period; whereas today there was around 40-minutes of question and answer before Genpo Roshi did some of the Big Mind process toward the end.

The Big Mind process is simply where Genpo Roshi calls out for certain states of mind to show up in the room, and then he invites people to just describe how they are experiencing that state of mind.

If you'd like to see what that process is like, here is a video that sorta illustrates it:

Click to view

One aspect of this process that I really liked is that when people open themselves up to certain states of mind, they have an opportunity to notice that the feelings/thoughts they are experiencing are essentially impersonal. I was talking to Patrick a bit after the session, and he reported that often people say things in such a session that are totally uncharacteristic of their normal mind. Though this wasn't ever said directly, I noticed that this process can be very effective toward facilitating the realization that the content of what happens in one's mind/heart is totally impersonal to the individual.

For the last three days, I've been experiencing a sustained blissful beingness where I can't stop smiling and glowing. I feel as if some renewed presence is starting to emanate from me. I've been through this a number of times, but not in the last year or more. I have no idea what it is that is going on, that likely won't become clear for a week or two. I've learned not to analyze it so much, to just go with it and let the renewed awareness to just show up in its own way and in its own time. (I used to manhandle it and force it.)

When I emerged from the session, and we were all filing toward the home that had the coffee and tea, I felt as if my peaceful state had been amplified in a way that everyone around me was feeding off it, as well. I enjoyed the presence of the others enormously, as well.

I then chit chatted with a man named Patrick, Anna, Gwen, and this really cool dude named Tristan. That was really fun, even if I did end up talking about my life story for a while. (I mentioned I used to be Mormon, so I got a couple questions about that. I think next time I'll just not mention my Mormon background. The Mormon talk is enormously boring to me cause there's nothing I say during those conversations that I haven't heard others or myself say at least 100 times.)

And that was that... I had a couple pictures snapped in front of the main building with the Zen Center sign on it, just to have photographic evidence that I had made it there, and then off I went back toward home.

Tristan lives at the center, he evidently is a full-time practitioner. I found that enormously interesting. I really resonated with him, even when I noticed him meditating in the room with us all. He also reminds me of Elvis, in that he plays guitar and just has a similar feel about him that Elvis did when he came up to Vic and me in San Diego. Tristan mentioned they have a party there at the center every so often, so I made a note to hold in mind that I wanted to attend the next party they have. I'd like to know what the experience is like to party with some Zen practitioners! *evil grin*

It will be interesting to see what comes from this experience I had today. :) I feel very comfortable at that center, so I could easily see doing a week-long retreat, or something of that sort. We'll just have to see how it goes. Zen is merely one facet of my personal practice, and I'm not sure I'd want to focus on it exclusively at this point... or even if that is what they'd expect of me if I did a retreat.

*bow*