" Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream" The Beatles

It is not dying, it is not dying,

Lay down all thought surrender to the void,

It is shining, it is shining.

That you may see the meaning of within,

It is speaking, it is speaking,

That love is all and love is ev’ryone,

It is knowing, it is knowing.

The Beatles

I just returned from sitting Zazen all day at the Mount Baldy Zen Center. Driving through the rain and clouds, dodging the rocks tumbling from the hairpin turns on the mountain road, I truly left behind the illusion of my civilized life, to enter the mind stopping realm of Zen. The real world of what Leonard Cohen has called the marines of consciousness.

Within moments of arriving, I was silently sitting in the Zendo, legs crossed, for most of the next 4 hours, punctuated with some silent walking in circles.

3  identical bowls, dish towel and cloth napkins, and 1 cup were the instruments of our semi-formal ritualized silent lunch. When finished the filling meal of home made bread, salad, soup and tea all was cleansed with the boiling water poured from the old kettle passed up and down the table, and neatly stored for the next meal. When I stayed for a week a dozen years ago, I used the same 3 bowls for the week. And they never saw a kitchen sink. All cleaned up at the end of each meal. Minimalist, perfect, simple: Zen. Then silent sitting and walking Zazen for another 3 hours. Formal tea, casual vegan pizza (the rest of the gang enjoyed a beer) and at last a chance to talk and catch up. Then I was on my way down the mountain.

The chattering brain of mine hates the silence. My knees and inner thighs scream to move. But you can't move. You can't even scratch the powerful itch that began 2 seconds after the bell rings to begin the meditation. You sit still like a rock until the clapper sounds and you can wiggle for a minute or two until the stillness begins again.

It is not relaxing. It has no purpose. None. It will not heal me. Does not increase immune surveillance or aid in the engraftment.  

Maybe it gives me a broader perspective. I am not sure. To paraphrase Tom Robbins you don't meditate with any goal in mind. 

So why bother? 

May I please answer with an old Zen joke? You will find it published under my name (Dr. Koffman, the comic) in Joke Stew and other anthologies.

I went to a Buddhist retreat and it was a big success. I learnt nothing.