I Zen'd My Ass Off

It's been something that I've been wanting to do for a long time, dear reader. Join a zendo and begin a course of meditation training. I had tried to do it in Texas, but the final days of my sojourn there were rather chaotic. I found a local zendo that I am somewhat confident is reasonably sane. This past Sunday, I signed up for an intro class. It's just down the road from me, a quaint renovated house filled with twisting hallways and a spacious upper floor patio. The interior decor is SoCal-inspired Japanese drag. It is bright, clean, covered in white paint with bamboo veneers and contains an un-Zenly amount of Chinatown trinkets. The afternoon event covered zazen basics, nothing new to me theoretically. Practically, it wasn't too strenuous as we only sat for about 10 minutes.

There were five other folk there, all women and, weirdly enough, three of them were named Deborah/Debbie/Deb. Yes, dear reader, I thought the same thing! I had not entered some innocent Zen training class but instead had stumbled into some strange cult where initiates change their names to Debbie, sign over all their worldly possessions to the "zendo" and marry some unwashed long-haired hippy dude named Gary. I'll keep my eyes on this Debbie thing. In the end, the energy of the group was pretty good, and we were pretty much all new to Orange County, coming from Iowa, San Francisco, Boston and Washington, D.C. Post Buddha boot-camp, we parted after a snack of organic lemonade and seedless California grapes (holy mixed message!) I left excited about my new course, harboring only a slight disappointment that we weren't supplied with some zen swag for our $$ -- perhaps a bodhisattva bottle opener or maybe a t-shirt boasting something like, "Real men heart Buddha"...

This Tuesday night, I went to my first full zazen session. This involves two 30 minuted sitting sessions and one ten minute walking meditation. There was only one other newbie from Sunday there, the woman who wasn't a Deborah. There wasn't much of an orientation; I entered the zendo and someone pointed out a spot for me. I had inaccurately gauged the appropriate size of my zazen ass-cushion and I chose poorly. My selection was far too small for me and my posterior began to slowly and painfully squeeze the blood from my legs. Another distraction was the fact I had been given a spot in front of the dishwasher; I kept trying to imagine a Japanese zendo with an automatic dishwasher and it sorta took the romance out of the whole thing. It was also a bit rough trying to be mindful of one's breath while my ankles slipped into a coma. Always eager to strive for academic poise, I alternated between being mindful of breath and mindful of the developing deep vein thrombosis in my left anterior tibia. One blessing of losing blood in the lower extremities is that eventually starved of oxygen, distracting nerves stop tingling. Of course, being the prim Zen newbie that I am, I certainly did not want to stir and reposition myself and then disturb the 15 or so other practitioners. After the first half hour, the zen teacher struck a gong, everyone stood up and bowed. This is where it got interesting...

I was able to pull myself up and lean against the dishwasher with one leg. The left leg was really groggy and I could not move my foot at all. I experimented with swiveling my hip around until I could pivot my left foot flat on the ground. I couldn't put any weight on the leg, lest I tip over. Cursing to myself, I tried to figure out what people were doing next. Everyone in the room was facing my direction. Great, I didn't feel awkward at all. I tried to turn in the general direction of the group but started to tilt over on the side of my dead leg, augh! I caught myself without falling into the man next to me but did tip a chair backwards, almost dropping it onto another meditating fella. Then the group took a step forward. Dammit, the walking meditation was beginning and I had no motor conrol of my feet. A knot in my stomache forms and I have visions of being the first newbie to injure himself by falling and impaling myself on the nearby pointy buddha-statue. Thanks be to Quan-Yin, "walking meditation" involved taking one step every 15-20 seconds at first. By the time I had to cross the room, I was able to stand without leaning against wall or cabinet. Needless to say, I was not particularly in Zen-mind for the second sitting session. Still, I managed to sit for the next 30 minute session and then gingerly step over to the reading group. Next time I head back to the zendo, I'll be sure to grab an ass-pillow that is more dimensionally appropriate.