The next two posts are pretty specific to my experience at the San Francisco zen center (they're about all of the forms you follow in the meditation hall). If you meditate at home, they probably won't be all that applicable to you so feel free to skip away...
Anyone who has been to the Saturday intro to meditation thing knows that the zendo is full of rules. There are rules for entering the zendo, for exiting the zendo, for walking in the zendo, for getting on a cushion, for getting off a cushion. There are places that your hands should be, that your feet should be, that your butt should be. There are bells, there are drums, and there is complete silence; so even if you wanted to ask about the rules, you couldn't, you would be so rude to even whisper in the zendo.
I had been to the Saturday intro thing a bunch of times so I knew the basic rules about the zendo and could mostly follow them. However, I had also had a couple of prior run-ins with the zendo that left me feeling like no matter what I did, I was doing it wrong and in so doing, was disturbing the others who were doing it right.
My first mishap with the zendo occurred the first time I went. At the Saturday intro, one of the teachers had said that it often helps to follow other people in the zendo if you're not sure what to do. So when I came in, I sat at the very last seat in the zendo. This was fine until zazen ended and it was time to walk out. Unbeknownst to me, you file out of the zendo from the back, one person from each side stepping in line to exit. So, I stood there, hands all perfect like they had taught me, and waited for someone to start leaving. Meanwhile, the entire zendo was waiting for me to step in to line. This went on for a while, though I was totally unaware of it. I just stood there, eyes reverently averted, relying on my peripheral vision to glance at others to figure out when to walk. Finally someone decided to break the rules and step in line in front of me. They did it a little huffily, but I just followed after them. It wasn't until someone approached me in the coat room afterward and explained that I was in the spot that starts the filing out of the zendo that I understood what I had done. The person who told me this was nice about it but they also said it with an importance to it, not an “ah, it happens all the time, don't worry about it” more of a “just so you know for next time” kind of tone. I, of course, felt totally embarrassed, ashamed, and a little mad that there were rules that no one had told me about.
My second incident happened when I tried to sit in a seat that “belonged” to someone else. At the Saturday intro thing, they tell you that you can sit anywhere in the zendo that doesn't have a wooden marker on it and it's true, you can. But it's also true that there's a bit of a seating hierarchy in the zendo. There are assigned seats for sure (that's what the wooden markers signify) but there are also different sections of the zendo and if you sit in there long enough, you discover which are the bleachers and which are the sky boxes. At this point, I knew where the bleachers were, and I sat in them. But one morning, my little seat was taken, and so were a lot of seats so I stopped in my tracks and turned to face the first available seat.
“Eli!" whispered the Ino.
I immediately stepped back into line and walked forward to find some other seat. It was fine but it left me confused again and made me totally afraid of making the same mistake at another seat. Now, it's possible that that seat had a wooden block on it and I didn't see it. I know now that it was the fourth seat and the first four seats are reserved for the people who run the chants and bows that occur in the zendo. At the time, however, I thought that I was sitting in a seat that didn't have a wooden block and I was still messing up. And I think that that's what was hardest for me about these two incidents: Even when I followed the rules, I was breaking them.
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