Last Monday, I spontaneously decided to double sitting for a week; sort of a sad excuse for a week-intensive that many monasteries undergo every month. To my defense, the type of intensive practice undergone at monasteries is really only possible at my (low) level with the support of a surrounding community. Last Monday, I wasn't able to sit in the morning, so that night I decided to do two sessions to make it up, and that led to deciding to do four 45-minute sessions every day for a week. They consisted of one immediately after waking up, one after lunch in the afternoon, and two at night, separated by a shower or a bite to eat.

The week ended this morning with a single hour and a half sitting, with a pause after 45 minutes to light another stick of incense. Very weirdly, there was a breeze blowing through the window, often threatening to blow out the candle that was lit, but it wasn't until literally right after the session was over that the wind finally blew out the candle cold. Good job.

I know I didn't have much good to say about "Zen Mountain Monastery" in "Mt. Tremper", NY, where I did a "weeklong residential visit" last month (still angling for Google hits), the least of which was their use and mispronounciation of the word sesshin for the weeklong intensive. Sesshin, a Japanese word, is not a specialized, untranslatable word. If they call it "weeklong intensive" or "monthly retreat", you get more of an idea of what it is than if you call it sesshin when you're not Japanese or Japanese-speaking. So to me, it seems they only use it for the exotic factor, a poor reason to practice or train in Buddhism. Even so, many of them (mis)pronounced it like "session". If they're going to mispronounce it closely to an English word, a word which actually would work as a specialized English term to refer to the retreat, they might as well re-term it "Session" (you just have to trust me that they weren't doing this already, they were clearly mispronouncing sesshin, not pronouncing "session").

But I think it was my visit there that did make me think of doing my own version of a weeklong intensive at all. And the work there also has gotten me to make sure I do some sort of housekeeping every day around my parents' house. Nothing major, just 15-30 minutes, sweep out the garage, clean bathrooms at least once a week, anything that can be an assigned task that I focus my mind on.

I like a lot of the theory behind the practice at that monastery, I just wasn't thrilled at the implementation. Along with sitting and work practice, other keystones of their practice include art practice and body practice among other things. I wasn't thrilled that their focus was on exotic Oriental things like Chinese calligraphy and martial arts. But it has made me make sure that I've got music somewhere in my daily schedule as well as riding. It doesn't matter what, really, as long as it involves mindfulness practice.