Silence at Young Urban Zen

Just a preface: This post was written about four weeks ago when we practiced ending in silence at Young Urban Zen. I just didn't have a chance to post it until now.

Tonight, I felt a moment of self acceptance. It might have been more than a moment, almost a lingering, not permanent, not fixed- maybe like a ghost touching you, though it'd be more like a poltergeist 'cause my self actually embodied me tonight. But it was a nice emodiment, like a towel fresh out of the drier after a cold swim, like that hot cocoa or tea that permeates without burning.

We had been talking about silence at Young Urban Zen and I had been surprised by how much of what was described in the reading about silence was actually true for me. Many of the things that the author was describing were experiences I had actually been having over the past couple of months, or weeks even. I was also thinking about the fact that I was actually doing what the author was describing. And I was continuing to do it- I was actually practicing silence that night, not intentionally, not for the sake of "practicing silence" but actually experiencing things as they were, not needing to add on to them.
At the end of the meeting, we had a second sitting of zazen in an attempt to end our meeting in silence. As I was sitting, I actually felt my breath. At the earlier sitting that night, I had been feeling it too. By feeling it, I mean that I was actually just feeling the air move through my body. Normally when I feel my breath, I'm feeling for it, trying to make it be a certain way or noticing it or waiting for it to come but this time, I actually just felt it move up my abdomen and out my ears. Tonight was the first time I had ever done this.
At the second sitting, I started to do it again but then I started to feel for what I had been experiencing in the first sitting, so I reminded myself to just breathe, not breathe for something, and I went back to just feeling the air move through my body.
I thought too about just being present, about being present to each and every moment and not trying to make things be a certain way. I thought about how silence can be about that too- about acceptance and that it came from just being, not being in order to get something or do something. I was noticing how real my relationships were that night with people, how much closer I was coming to seeing the reality in front of me and that this had come from seeing things just as they are.

And then, it was weird. It was like this touching, in the middle of my chest, maybe like a heat. And then, it was really creepy because I gradually felt this creeping of warmth from my core to my extremities and then, I was inside myself, like, all of me was actually me. And that was super scary because it was just me. That's all, just me and myself and there was no where to hide but it was different because this time, we weren't separate, we were together and I realized that this was it. This is her, this is me, this is who I am.
At first, it was a little lonely because there was just us. I was a little scared about what we would do if it was just us because we might not know what to do. But then I remembered that we didn't need to know what to do, that it isn't about there being a right way to do things, that my job is to just be who I am. And then I kind of stretched into myself, like when you put on a long sleeve shirt and have to reach all the way to the end of the sleeves. Once I put myself on and looked around, it was okay, we were okay, and then I atually was myself, we weren't two people anymore.
I thought a little more about being silent, about how I was doing what the author had described. I tried to point to what had caused it and I saw that it was me, that I had been doing these things, that I was listening to others, that I was a teacher in my classroom, and I thought about some things I had done this past weekend and that I had done them.
And I thought about what had happened when I had done them- that even though I had expressed myself and ended up doing something that I thought might have hurt someone, instead of pulling away, they had come closer to me. They had apologized to me and they genuinely cared for me.
And that's when I realized that I was loved for who I was, that no one needed me to be a certain way, that I wasn't going to be left if I was unpleasant or difficult, that someone reallly truly loved me, and, honestly, always had.
I cried.
And then I tried to not cry because it wasn't the zendo, it was Young Urban Zen, and the guy next to me was there for the first time and I didn't want him to think we were all culty or witnessy or something. But then I knew that wasn't going to work either because the whole point in all of this is to just let things happen, so I let the tears run down my face, though I did close my eyes.
I must have gotten preoccupied with the whole crying/ not crying thing because after that, I didn't feel like my self was embodying me anymore. It wasn't like it left or anything, I just didn't feel the feeling I had before, I just went back to my regular self, which I think tends to watch what's going on, which tends to keep a distance and I'm still trying to see that, see what that space between my actual self and the self that others see is.
Eventually, the bell rang and I was grateful that we ended in silence so that I wouldn't have to explain why I had been crying. I wiped the tears from my face, put away my zafu, got my friend's stuff from my jacket pocket to give to her, and then walked kind of gently out of the building.
I felt a little stuck. On the one hand, I had just had this profound moment of the beginning of self acceptance and I wanted to share the fact that it had happened with someone. On the other hand, I was feeling somewhat overwhelmed and vulnerable in response to it. It had been kind of scary to truly see myself, to see that that was all there was, to be faced with the reality of it.
Once I got outside, people were talking like regular and I realized that I didn't have to do anything here either, just listen. I talked with people, we joked, I listened and got excited about stuff and the night just went on. I ended up telling one friend about it, because I needed someone to know, that it had happened, right there, while we were all just sitting. We hugged as I told her and then we got interrupted and that was fine too. It was getting late and we all needed to get home so I walked to my bike, unlocked it, joked with friends about the potential for an empty zendo in the morning, and rode home.