Reflecting on Three Years as a Zen monk at Chozen-ji

And a lifetime of Zen training still ahead

There are four different time periods that we usually recommend for people who want to "live in" and train at Chozen-ji: three weeks, three months, one year, and three years. Recently, we've had more people make long term commitments to living and training at Chozen-ji, mostly three months and one year. 

Few people want to commit to three years of living and training at Chozen-ji, or can fathom what that would be like. We have a rigorous schedule that is physically exhausting. The Dojo is also a pressure cooker environment that pushes you to approach Zen training with the directness and dedication you'd give matters of life and death. In some ways, it's a reality distortion bubble. In many ways, it's more real than the life of self-restraint and questionable priorities I remember living "out there."

A few weeks ago was my three-year anniversary living and training at Chozen-ji. The exact date came and went without my noticing. My husband, Michael, was the one who reminded me, toasting the anniversary over drinks post-Kendo class.

We've been lucky enough to be able to continue training in Kendo twice a week at Chozen-ji, since the monks living here can operate as one household, relatively isolated as a group. After every Kendo class, we rehydrate and reflect on the class. It's our chance to hear the Zen masters and Kendo teachers highlight the Zen lessons hidden within swordsmanship. Post-Kendo is also a continuation of Kendo class, but a kind of social Kendo in which letting someone who is senior to you serve the teachers' snacks or drinks is like letting that student get ippon, or a point, on you. Even when we're relaxing, we have to pay attention.

"Cristina, tell the other live-ins what you've learned from your three years of Zen training," the abbot requested.

"Well," I said after thinking about it for a few seconds. "After three years, the thing that is most clear to me is that I still have a lot of training to do. Not that I haven't made progress, but now I can see what I need to work on that much more clearly. I can't imagine what it will be like to look back at 10 years, or 30."

"That sounds about right," Michael followed up. "After three years, now you should know how to train."

In the past few months, I have indeed seen many habits of mine that need fixing. Whether it's because of the anniversary or not, I do feel as if I'm seeing them with new eyes. Though my awareness and sense of what Zen training is has grown over time, I can see more clearly now than before what needs to be done and when. Not only do my bad habits stand out to me more sorely than before, but I also have a new resolve to fix them. 

In the grand scheme of things, these can seem like small and inconsequential things. But they point to fundamental flaws in the way I approach the world and myself. Here is an example:

In Chado (The Way of Tea) class on Sunday morning, a new, inexperienced student was learning to serve tea. Because she is still learning the form, she executed each movement very slowly. This drew the ceremony out while all of us sat in seiza (with your legs folded underneath us, aka "Japanese style"), which is painful and difficult after a time. 

Now, I had already sat 45 minutes of zazen in seiza, and continued to sit seiza over another hour and fifteen minutes while serving tea, instructing some of the new students, and now, while being served tea. My legs had fallen entirely asleep already on multiple occasions and my ankles ached badly when they weren't numb or pins and needles. So, since it was nearing the end of the class, I didn't give it a second thought to shift my hips so that the weight of my rear end was on the tatami, not on my heels. Ah, sweet relief.

Then, I realized that Anna, a new student next to me who is very sincere and whom I admire for taking the Zen training seriously despite her young age, was continuing to sit seiza despite being visibly uncomfortable. So was the Sensei. Anna's back was straight, and she was respectfully paying attention to her fellow student practicing being host. I remembered that, over the time I'd been in the room with her, I had only seen her rest her ankles once or twice. It wasn't long before she'd go back to sitting seiza with the top of her arches flat on the tatami beneath her, bearing her full weight.

"Damnit," I said to myself. "Anna's intuition is to keep sitting seiza while mine is to take it easy." That was the first habit I noticed—previously invisible but now quite glaring. The second habit was that, if the roles had been reversed, and she was the one taking it easy, I would have felt completely in the right to tell Anna to push herself to sit seiza through the whole class. That meant I was happy to hold a different set of expectations for myself than for others.

Nobody noticed or seemed to care how I was sitting. I was in pain, so why not rest a moment? Most of us would think it unreasonable or antiquated to make yourself so uncomfortable unnecessarily. But sitting seiza wasn't the important thing, as far as Zen training is concerned. The lesson was in what it pointed to and once I started to pay closer attention, I saw more and more instances of my failing to act in ways that I would expect the other, more junior, monks and students to. 

Over the years, I've known some excellent leaders who knew instinctively—or learned very early in life—never to make someone do something you're not willing to or already doing yourself. Perhaps they don't need Zen training at all. But Zen isn't about surfacing any specific, individual trait. Training in Zen is to systematically take away any obstructions that keep us from realizing our True Selves. In my case, this narcissism that makes me think it's OK to live by different rules, and to not push myself is my biggest current obstruction. For others, Zen training will bring out whatever their obstruction is.

Three years into training at Chozen-ji, I can, indeed, say that I have more confidence in how to train in Zen. Which is to say, I've got my work cut out for me. The apprehension and the exuberance for another three, ten, or thirty years of Zen training cancel each other out so that how I feel is somewhere in the middle. There isn't a whole lot to think about—living in a way that is anchored by Zen training feels not only alive in a way that's pungent and fully saturated. It also feels natural, like the ways things are supposed to be. And now I know how to go forward.