The Brighter the Sun, the Stronger the Shadows

(The wind erodes even the mightiest of mountains, nor does our vain pursuit of wealth and achievement change our fate as mortals.)
(The winds of time are sometimes a gentle breeze)

A Two-day recitation retreat report submitted by Jerry Roach. The retreat was held from March 18 to March 20, 2005 at DDRC, Pine Bush, NY.

This is a report about two days in a tong filled with radiating sunlight and chants, chants from another more wise and humane time, a time when the shadows of suffering abated, a time of pure glowing light revealing a new and brighter sense of our nature, a nature free of suffering.

The shadow grows longer.

Just before leaving for the two-day retreat I sat in my apartment in Midtown Manhattan protesting in vain the suffering a family member had to endure before her recent passing. I was experiencing the kind of grief that follows us through the days of our lives, ever reminding us of our finite existence, and pointing unerringly towards our own mortality and of those we love. If we allow these dark shadows in our lives to grow they can turn our days into darkness, a darkness that steals from us the joy of being alive. I was at a cross roads, I had just come from the Western retreat a few days earlier, and here I was in the throes of grief this morning defeating the wonderful insights and experiences I had in John Crook's lively five days on the mountain top. Could I find the energy to join yet another retreat. I worried that I was rushing things, I felt unprepared to face what promised to be an intense two days of chanting and meditation and Dharma talks spoken in a foreign language I was not able to grasp. Then I recalled a thought about the nature of loss and our response to loss Shifu had while discussing the transcendent experience within the Dharma. Shifu explained that "Dharma is rooted in an understanding of impermanence that allows detachment, and it is this that constitutes the unique claim to the truth of Chan." Detachment is not an uncaring response to tragedy and suffering, on the contrary it is a path to greater compassion because we remove self from the equation with all its demands, needs and attachments. I finally let go of my grief because my grief was all about self.

The Sun returns 

The trip north on the Garden State Parkway for the Two Day Retreat 80 miles away was uneventful. On the way I thought about the two days ahead and the highly structured rote of a recitation retreat. How viable is a retreat like this in modern times, I thought? I pondered this question for a while and once again turned to Shifu for answers. I recall him remarking in one of his books that the reasons why the koan system had been created was that monks in monasteries had become no longer able to 'maintain the dead mind' and hence masters had had to invent new ways of focusing. I may not be a monk, but New York City is not a conducive environment for maintaining a 'dead mind' what ever that is. So what does being dead of mind mean? Shifu said that the dead mind was one that had become dead to attachments and once freed, the mind becomes an awareness of clarity with unobscured insight into its own nature. I enjoyed the rest of the trip to Pine Bush focusing on the road ahead.

I finally turned my car up Quannacut Road and just over the hill laid the pearl of this remote valley in the foothills of the ancient Shwangunk mountain range, the paramount of an emerging Western Pure land, the ephemeral and pristine Dharma Drum Mountain Retreat Center in Pine Bush New York. My spirit accelerated as I returned to the sight of some of the most significant turning points in my life. But this retreat promised to be different than the rest. I was somewhat apprehensive about my ability to participate because of the continuous recitations of chants in Chinese, and too the thought of achieving an output of 300 prostrations in two days seemed to predispose me to a showdown between my will to carry on and a catastrophic Chiropractic breakdown. However by Sunday afternoon I had counted 100 prostrations and I was still standing, and feeling strangely fit.

I viewed in wonder the graceful and poised Guo Chian Shi-the leader of the retreat and one of Shifu's chosen brought to New York to lead his ministry at the Meditation center in Queens, New York. At 26 she is one of the youngest monastic so chosen, but in the next few days it would be easy to understand the source of Shifu's confidence in her. But for now, as I observed her standing next to the Buddha's altar in the Chan Hall, I was entranced by her diminutive other world vestige, a vestige dwarfed by the cavernous and glistening Oakwood hall surrounding her, a hall composed of a paradoxical mixture of western and eastern contemporary architecture, an altogether fitting stage for the Venerable Master Sheng Yen visionary mission of bringing Dharma to the west.

From the right of the altar a voice of extraordinary clarity began a chant pulling at the emotions of the large gathering in the hall, all at once stilled by this sirens inspiring harmony, and now giving answer to the articulate intonations of this clarion voice from nirvana. Thus began the first of a series of innumerable chants throughout the day by this throng of retreatants who at times moved in graceful and deliberate silence dressed in flowing black robes in a succession of intricate and synchronized processions throughout the Chan Hall. As they moved, undulating like a sea of black cloth, they chanted over and over again various Buddha's names in rote. I was instantly enthralled as I began to comprehend my own participation in this ancient of ancient processions and chants, I was now of the ages pulled into an ultimate time warp that began challenging my sense of place, time, and destination.

The voice belonged to Guo Chii Fa Shi, an intensely warm person sharing the chore of leadership on the retreat and as a key monastic in the Queens Meditation Center In New York. Her ingenuous smile made me feel welcome even as a westerner not well versed in the monastic traditions in the east and worse a source of distraction for others during the retreat, and at best a kind of comic relief as I more than once tripped over the hem of my too long robe. But soon I passed from mimicking Chinese chant with a form of baby talk to actually being able to follow along in Chinese thanks to the repetitive nature of the chants.

It's curious how not being able to understand the words and the words of the Dharma talks did not impede my ability to understand the meaning of what was transpiring. Of course a kind and bright neighbor acting as a translator helped me along. On one occasion however I had completely misunderstood the purpose of what I thought was a trot through the hall, a joyous bouncing gate that I embellished by rocking back and forth and swinging my hands to and fro while my hands were clasped as if in prayer all the while. It was properly explained to me the symbolism inherent in this procession. The trot was as if we were jumping from one lotus blossom to the next leaving behind with each step our concerns we have in this world that binds us to the endless cycle of suffering. In another procession we held Buddha in our clasped hands as we carried his presence with us along the path of our procession. We focused over and over again on Buddhas name with each chant and with each step. We were draw into a new awareness and clarity of where we are, a gradual sharpening of our ability to be in this room completely conscious of the moment and detached from the outside world. I became less aware of stray thoughts, I was in a sail boat traveling on the open sea on heading towards the distant horizon a place no different than where we are at this moment, a sense of travel marked only by the spray in your face and the wake of the boat stretching out behind us. The repetition of waves and the continuous flapping of the sail is exactly what we are creating. Above is the ceiling of the Chan hall design in the manner of many Christian churches, the ceiling is the shape of a hull of a 19th Century schooner turned up side down. For the Christians this symbolized the church as fishers of men, for Buddhists it may represent the travel time on our path to selfless mind, the fact that the hull is inverted and is landlocked furthers the precept there is no path and no attainment that remains an abiding paradox of Buddhism and worthy of continuous meditation.

The retreat was a success in many ways. I am just starting to express my feelings about our weekend in the sun and among the trees. As I had prepared the photographs I had been asked my take of the retreat I am now struck by what the camera sees in the faces of my co-retreatants, faces that tell a story about the degree of mindfulness that can be achieved with relative ease. The clarity of poetry and of music and the sounds of Buddha working in our hearts all within the cavernous inverted hull of this great wooden vessel upon a tranquil sea. The sounds and the shifting light within this foreign tong beguiling my imagination, lofting softly spoken arrows into my heart, turning the roar of a distracted mind into a distant murmur, the slow walking processions, the jumping from lily pad to lily pad in a thumping procession around the hall in unison began a process of easing away, of letting go of with every chant the earthly determination to keep these distractions, vexations and attachments alive, going, going, gone. Amituofo.