Aftermath of Dreaming(125)

After a thirty-minute meditation that feels like three hours, a short, impossible-to-tell-her-age Japanese monk wearing a deep red robe enters and gives a dharma talk that is mildly challenging and inspiring when I am able to concentrate on it, which isn’t much. I figure she is a warm-up act for the Zen Master Jesuit priest, so I let myself wonder why it is that nuns and female monks look so ageless. Is it sex that makes us old? Like that D. H. Lawrence short story—maybe he was right after all. Which makes me think of Andrew; he looks a lot younger than his years and God knows he’s f*cked a helluva lot. Okay, these are not thoughts to have at a retreat, focus on what she is saying, but the monk suddenly stops. I have an odd feeling that she ended right in the middle of a sentence though I can’t be sure since I wasn’t paying attention, but with Zen it could have been some odd koan-style kind of lecture. She stands up, bows once, and walks out of the room, then we all get up and silently file out, stopping in the anteroom to recover our shoes, then head across the concrete courtyard to the main building.

The evening meal is exhilarating in its meagerness. The fourteen other retreatants and I are wordless and the reality of how dreadful this could be is hitting me, especially since a few of them are chewing not so silently. I have an improved appreciation for conversation at meals. I imagine a test the Zen Compound could have given—people only able to eat their meals without gestating sounds allowed in. Maybe I’ll suggest it. But it would probably be looked down upon as not letting go of worldly concerns like table manners. Though why can’t those be enforced? Okay, these also are probably not the kind of thoughts I’m supposed to be having, but keeping myself from pantomiming to Steve, who is down the table from me, my intolerance of the others’ eating is taking all of my energy.

At the end of the noisy meal, we proceed noiselessly back to the meditation hall for the day’s final za-zen and settle down on our cushions. Steve still has not acknowledged me, and that is just as well since I have a feeling that if he did, words would start flying out of me, so unused am I to this silence emitting from me, this inability to communicate with others, only with myself. No one told me that that was going to be part of this. I mean, I knew about the silence; I just didn’t realize that it meant I would only be dealing with myself. That concept is terrifying, frankly. The Zen Master Jesuit priest enters the hall and slowly walks to a special gold zafu that was placed there for him while we were gone. He settles into an intimidating lotus, especially considering that he looks like one of those red-nosed Irish priests I grew up hearing mass from, and agility of body was not a trait I associated with them. Agility with a bottle maybe, but…Anyway. Come on, get back to my meditating. I reposition myself on my cushion, pretending that this will help. As I try to feel as comfortable as the rest of the silent sentient beings appear, I think maybe this retreat won’t be so bad. The Jesuit priest Zen Master is here. He’ll show how Catholicism and Buddhism can cohabit. This is exactly what I need.

The first thirty minutes of meditating only feels like a hundred, and that’s an improvement from this afternoon, so I’m doing fine. Okay, my head is going nonstop, but I’m fine. Other than the fact that I keep thinking about…And see, just thinking at all is a problem. Of course, I’m not supposed to attach judgment to anything, like labeling something a problem, but if anything is a problem when meditating, then thinking would be it. So I try to bring my mind back to my breathing, but all I keep thinking about is Andrew and…Adultery. And I suppose I could have left the Ten Commandments at the Zen Compound’s door, but how can I forget them?

So I am in a quandary. And the Catholic guilt suddenly kicks in in preparation for my upcoming mortal sin and the Buddhist loving-kindness for myself and all sentient beings is not working and I am looking at three silent days of thinking about this because I can’t speak except within the ceremonies, which so far aren’t even Christian, much less Catholic, I mean, a Hail Mary out loud with everyone would really help, but the ceremonies are all very Zen. Then suddenly a little bell sounds—it doesn’t ring, it sounds—and everyone gets up, so I get up, and they start walking, but a very specific kind of walking, kind of halfway between sleepwalking and being a bridesmaid, and I’ve done both, but I’m having a very hard time finding the balance between the two, so my rhythm is totally off, and a line has formed and people are following me, but I start going the wrong way because I can’t figure out the damn route, then suddenly the little bell sounds again and somehow everyone has ended up in front of their cushions except for me, like some horrible Zen version of musical chairs, so I rush over to mine, probably causing them to have to bring their minds back to their breathing from being annoyed at me, and we meditate some more, but all I am doing is thinking that Andrew and I had sex before he and his wife even met, so that gives me squatter’s rights, and even if it doesn’t, I’ve already committed the red-letter sin with him twice, so surely one more time isn’t going to hurt, because my soul’s probably already condemned, though it’s karma I should be worried about, then that damn little bell sounds again, and we all get up for more weird walking, and I’m a tiny bit better this time, thank God, because it is starting to distract me from the need I am suddenly feeling to confess to everyone, but particularly the Jesuit priest if he would just act like one, then my mind starts very loudly thinking, Can’t we get to the Catholic part? I know how to do those ceremonies. I’m really very good at them, I even remember all the responses. I thought this was supposed to be a combination. Isn’t this guy a Jesuit priest?