SOSHIN McMURCHY
Recently my teacher’s teacher, Genjo Osho Marinello. was invited up to our Zenwest temple to lead a short weekend “intensive.”
This type of weekend is definitely intense. We begin meditating at 6 a.m., and go through the day till 9 p.m. with only three 30-minute breaks in which we try to maintain our practice. There is no use of phones, no Internet, no music, no talking and basically none of our normal distractions.
This might sound hellish, but the reality is that the form of the weekend retreat feels infinitely supportive.
One mindful activity leads into another, sitting moves into walking meditation, into chanting, on to more sitting meditation, then a formal meal, and personal practice period. By now, it’s 9 a.m. or so and there are only 12 more hours to go in the first day of the weekend. I begin to unwind, to find deep healing, to breathe freely.
The activities just continue to unfold one after the other, in which my only work is to stay present. Just be present with whatever is going on. So simple, so powerful and so healing.
We have individual interviews with the teacher. Then he gives a talk.
As a beginner, in my interview I’m working on my life koans — today it’s dealing with my loved ones’ pain. I come to interview as kind of a last resort, because I’m in a dry spell. This day I have nothing to show for my years of meditation or life as a junior priest but, encouraged by my teacher Eshu Osho, I go anyway.
Genjo Osho listens, then gives me a visual image I can use to create a loving space from which to be emotionally available to those I love.
This space is an antidote to my closing down and using old distraction habits of food and TV to get through the tough times.
Throughout the weekend, we have several short interviews. Genjo is attentive and supportive. When I arrive in tears, he knows I’m feeling grief at not having had the kind of support that he is encouraging me to give my own family. Adult children need the space to be nurtured while they sort out how they will deal with adult pain.
The weekend follows the time-honoured traditions of teachers who have passed on their best practices for literally thousands of years. As well as silent meditation, chanting and interview with the teacher, we also have dharma talks. These are talks interpreting the teachings of the many who have gone on ahead of us. Buddha, Rinzai, D.T. Suzuki and many others have left written records of their experiences, and in the dharma talk, the living teachers add their own experience to this rich record.
Genjo Osho’s engaging talks are about diving deep. In my words:
Imagine you have a tail, rooted deep into the substance of the universe, through which flows universal energy and love. Dive in imagination into the deep, luscious brown earth or into the depths of the ocean. Know that you are seamlessly connected with the universe. At the point where you reach the end of knowable and are floating in unknowable dark silence, this is the koan “Mu.”
Dive in and indulge in deep ocean at least once a day, and inspiration will bubble up, life will be easier. Go to the deep, deep water of your true self, where there are no distinctions, where we are all one, dive deep and be replenished.
I return from the weekend subtly changed. I renew my intention to maintain a daily practice of awakening and being renewed.
Soshin McMurchy is a novice priest with the Victoria Zen Centre, zenwest.ca, and serves as the Buddhist chaplain with the University of Victoria Multifaith Services. She lives in Victoria with Doshu, her life-partner of 35 years.
