The Difficulties You Are Experiencing Will Always Be with You

The day after I arrived at school, I discovered a row of hooks located just next to the shower, and also that the person occupying the Monk’s Room was a female fellow student. The hairy legs had been some sort of elevation-induced hallucination. All of the people staying in this building were women. The week, of course, turned out to be mostly wonderful, and flew by. Our curriculum largely centered around the Buddhist precepts and systems theory.

I appreciated that they not only said that our contemplative practice is crucial to our work as chaplains but backed it up by including at least two hour-long periods of meditation in each day’s schedule, which involves 40 minutes of sitting and 20 minutes of other stuff: various ceremonies and rituals (“service”) and/or mindful walking (kinhin).

However, sitting in the zendo, where incense is in liberal use, proved to be the hardest part of the week. (Sam tells me that the San Francisco Zen Center and the Berkeley Zen Center long ago eliminated the use of incense, which the Internet tells me causes lung cancer and is just as bad for you as secondhand cigarette smoke is. However, I also hear that Roshi is “high church,” so I don’t think the incense will be going away.) In the zendo, as on my first night there, I sat with my head aching and heart pounding and my body urgently insisting that I get it to breathable air. I spent pretty much every period of meditation the entire week saying to myself over and over, “Just this moment, just this moment.” Which is not a bad thing to practice; my mind was not wandering. Periodically, I told myself, “The difficulties you are experiencing will always be with you,” just in case I started to think there might arise a moment of ease or even pleasure. This paraphrases something I once heard a teacher say on a retreat at Spirit Rock (where they also do not use incense). The teacher at Spirit Rock was quoting a Zen teacher.

During our very first period of zazen, one of our three teachers (two men; one woman; the latter is the founder of this Zen center and a powerful force in Buddhism and beyond) escorted us new students to another temple for meditation instructions. Another of my recurring bad dreams has to do with claustrophobic tiny doorways that get smaller as I’m attempting to pass through. The doorways for this temple don’t actively shrink, but they are extremely low, and all but the very shortest people have to crouch down to enter. Again, there was an exceedingly claustrophobic feeling. A third bad dream come to life in less than 24 hours. Come to think of it, I probably have also had a bad dream about trying not to be observed by strangers when my undergarments are not in place, so make that four.

I had already resolved to survive the week one way or another, but what made me feel much better was when our first class session convened and I saw Roshi in person for the first time. Something about her presence made me feel that all was well. During the course of the week, groups of four or five of us were called during meditation for dokusan, teacher interview. During my interview, Roshi mentioned how important it is to study the precepts so that we can trust our own good hearts as we do our work.

The campus turned out to consist of much more than one one-story building. There are 10 or 15 buildings, all different inside (all the same color outside) and full of wonderful objects and furniture, Tibetan, Japanese and American Southwest.

During the week, I got a clump of emails indicating that there was a problem with my endorsement from Spirit Rock, a crucial part of board certification. It had been a somewhat laborious process to apply for this. The Association of Professional Chaplains said the letter of endorsement from Spirit Rock was in hand; the problem was that they don’t recognize Spirit Rock as a faith group. My contact at Spirit Rock suggested via email that perhaps I’d like to do the work to get Spirit Rock recognized, which I would not like to do at all. Between paid work, volunteer work, even more volunteer work, and the immense pile of deliverables for school, I am not at a loss for things to do.

At the end of the two-year chaplaincy program at the Zen center, it is possible to apply for ordination as a Zen priest. This is at Roshi’s discretion and depends on whether she feels she has a good relationship with the applicant, who is expected to become a member of the center and attend at least one sesshin (five- or seven-day intensive meditation practice period) per year. I have zero desire to be a Zen priest—mainly, I don’t want the requisite clothing—but it seems to me that if there is the possibility of being ordained, perhaps it would also be possible to receive a letter of endorsement, which seems like a lesser thing. I asked the center’s expert on APC requirements about this and she said to ask her again in August. (I also checked with the APC after I got home to see if an endorsement from school would be acceptable, and they said it would be.)

I am hoping that, about two years from now, I will be able to receive school’s endorsement, which I suppose will also entail becoming a member and going there annually for a sesshin. If that doesn’t work out, I guess I will have to do the work to help get Spirit Rock recognized by the APC. Another option would be to go through the entire program of the Chaplaincy Institute in Berkeley, which affords ordination as an interfaith minister (and costs a lot).

I was pleased that I’d be taking a non-stop flight from Albuquerque back to San Francisco: big plane! But no—it was that same 48-seat midget plane. I have to go back to school three more times this year as of this writing, plus three times next year, plus once in early 2020, and potentially once annually for the rest of my life, so I guess I will learn to enjoy riding in that wind-tossed little plane, since it turns out there is no nonstop flight from Oakland at the time of day I need to travel.