Saturday, December 4, 2010

This Week, I Have Been Mostly Eating...

...Oryoki.

I know that only a handful of people reading this are going to know this reference, and not all of them are going to find it funny, but still, it came to mind.
I reread my last entry and it sounded a little dour, but then I confess that I never approach sesshin with a feeling of impending glee. And now? Well, I had ten thousands thoughts, of course, a few of which were followed by "Well I could put that on the blog", but the nature of sesshin is such that when it actually comes to it, all that stuff has passed on. Now I feel pretty glazed over, I have to admit, though there are some things I will probably write about in a day or two. We managed to tuck four ceremonies into the last thirty six hours, three of which were new to me, and that was quite a handful.
For Roger's benefit, I will post this picture - after reading the admonitions last Saturday, we went to the zendo, and as I got downstairs I realised I had left some cushions by the doshi door before dinner, when I had got involved in conversations, so I put the stuff I was carrying down by the densho, moved the cushions, and as I retrieved the stuff, rose swiftly to hit the top of my head on the open lip of the bell, which rang quietly. I noticed I had a little blood trickling down my head as I was sitting, though it didn't hurt as much as my toe did from kicking the printer earlier (and that didn't solve the problem either), so I took a picture as I couldn't see what the damage was....

This is not how you hit the densho

6 comments:

robert barrer said...

in the words of the buddhas and ancestors..."ouch"

Victhor said...

That does not look like it feels good at all.

Shundo said...

I think I have a thick skull; after the first few minutes I pretty much forgot about it...

Sandy's witterings said...

I didn't realise that the zen life was so full of dangers!

Shundo said...

Well in the old days the masters would hit you; these days we're more sensitive around that, so we have to hit ourselves

Ms. W. said...

Parsnips!

I thought that injury looked far too large to be a shaving slip.

Good chance for sudden awakening--ow!