Picture: Zazen Meditation room at Lassalle Haus, Schönbrunn.
Zen masters are deeply critical of words as they are misleading and deceptive. They prefer to remain silent. So describing my recent three days Zen meditation retreat at the Lassalle-Haus (Centre) in Schönbrunn (near Zug, Switzerland) is a tricky endeavour at best, but describing the experience of remaining silent for days in the presence of 45 fellow students while meditating the whole day is challenging. At least I shall try, here is what happened:
The beautifully located Lassalle convention and teaching centre is run by Jesuit monks and has a long tradition of combing Christian mysticism with Zen teachings. The teachers have learned Zen from Japanese monks and are fully ordained. All the rituals and teachings are based on the Japanese Soto Zen teachings and replicated at Lassalle. First and foremost one had to remain silent throughout the whole course. And quite frankly, being silent among a big group was a very uplifting experience: no small talk, no chit-chat, no gossiping. Then the whole day was strictly regimented and partitioned by the booming sound of a centrally place massive gong. Also eating and clearing the table was orchestrated by a little bell, so was the meditation. And before, during and after the meditation one had to often bow (called Gasho in Japanese). The rituals help to avoid verbal communication and gives a point of reference that surprisingly most of the participants approved of. The days consisted of Zazen, meditation in front of a wall while sitting on a little pillow in a room laid out with Japanese tatami mats; Kinhin which is walking mediation in a group; Samu which is smaller tasks like cleaning and pauses and eating. During all activities one had to remain focused, silent and attentive.
According to our resourceful teacher Marcel Steiner Zen and particularly Zazen (which means meditating while seated) is the most direct way up on mountain of enlightenment (and down again as one should not remain up there). And it is a very strict and strenuous way up. The idea of Zen is to accept the things the way they are and not battle them. If for example anger arises while meditating, one should accept the anger and continue to focus on breathing, nothing else. It is the opposite of the way we are trained in the West: act and react to everything. In Zen one accepts while remaining present in the here and now.
In total we meditated about six hours in 20 minute sessions. While doing Zazen one should think about not thinking. One should not cling to thoughts but let them pass as clouds in the sky. And to my very surprise this was much harder than I thought. Much harder. In the mornings I succeeded more or less but in the afternoons and evenings I had a hard time not to focus on the pain in my knees and back. Towards the end of the retreat emotions of unknown strength arose in me while I sat and did nothing. I wonder where they came from.
After almost three days of meditating I arrived home mentally relaxed but my body was totally exhausted. I never thought that sitting still for hours could be so profound and so confronting. And I am already thinking about climbing another Zen Mountain.
Here a few blog entries explaining Zazen and describing other meditation retreats I did:
http://easteatswest.typepad.com/east_eats_west/2005/11/zazen_at_the_so.html
http://easteatswest.typepad.com/east_eats_west/2005/11/zazen_explained.html
http://easteatswest.typepad.com/east_eats_west/2005/11/zazen_part_ii_a.html
http://easteatswest.typepad.com/east_eats_west/2007/03/post.html
The Link for the Lassalle Centre: http://www.lassalle-haus.org/
Picture: Brigg brolis, handmade in England. 
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