Sesshin begins....now?

I attended a sesshin- a multi- day meditation retreat- at the zen center. It's taken me a while to process exactly just what went on during those seven days but I'm working on it. Regardless, the next few posts will be about my epxerience at the retreat, and afterwards. Basically, if you see the word sesshin in the title, that's what it's about.

I have attended one-day sits before, and they always include an orientation on the night before the sitting starts. The orientation usually includes a brief overview of the schedule of the sit, an opportunity to ask any questions, and then a reading of the admonitions (guidelines) for the sit.

So, on the night before sesshin started, I showed up at the zen center for orientation. And, like always, we talked about the schedule, they answered our questions, and then the Ino read the admonitions. As he read the last line of the admonitions, it felt kind of final, almost like a command:  Sesshin begins now.  I got up along with everyone else, but then I noticed that a lot of people were going in the same direction: toward the stairs that lead to the zendo.

“Wait, are we going to the zendo now?” I thought to myself. “It starts… now?”

I looked behind me, toward the door that leads to the street, checking to see if any of the non- residents were leaving the building. No one was, everyone was heading downstairs.  And then I thought, “Nah, the men’s dorm is downstairs, people are just going to their rooms.”

 And then I glanced to my right and saw the face of Blanche’s assistant, smiling and gently gesturing her head in the direction of the zendo. 

“Oh,” I sighed. “Sesshin begins now.”

I was in jeans. I had things to do. I was going to send emails, I was going to tidy up…

“Well,” I thought. “There goes your plan to practice oryoki one more time…”  and  I just followed everyone else, down the stairs and into the zendo.

I don’t really remember much about the first night’s sit. I remember reading from the chant sheet at the end of the night and thinking, “I think I can remember this chant, I don’t think I need the sheet.”

And I remember riding home and just going straight into bed because, apparently, sesshin had begun.