I’ve heard Roshi mention a few times the ‘vertical’ nature of our practice—from teacher to student, a bloodline travelling through many generations. For practitioners acquainted with ‘secular’ expressions of the Dharma (as I was when I left traditional practice for a time after studying for ten years with my teacher, Genpo Roshi), this avowedly religious mode may sound hierarchical. But what I have felt ever since I joined Stonewater in April 2024 is the truly communal spirit of this sangha. The chant ‘May we realize the Buddha Way together’ becomes real. Being alone together—whether cooking, sweeping the floor, giving a talk, time-keeping, going for a walk, gardening, washing up, bowing, or chanting—I experience it as a shiver on my skin. And I trust it. This came home to me full force during my first wobbly attempt as an officiant during service on the first autumn sesshin. Generously, unfussily encouraged by Sarah, I went away with her notes, rehearsing in a corner as I normally would for a performance or a lecture, going over the cues, amusing myself and telling myself off—go to the altar, do three bows, do it for chrissakes, now stand, chant, try not to look too stupid, do a humble bow, do it, focus, c’mon, don’t get distracted! During the actual service, it became clear that officiating is only possible as part of a co-created act of an orchestral ensemble where all participants are actively involved. Chanting took on a different tone like I really meant it for once. And when that happens, I have to breathe deeper so as not to choke through the tears due to all those meds they are bombarding me with, no doubt, but also tears of a strange, unspeakable joy. Feeling wobbly? So what! It no longer mattered. Fail again. Fail better? All right then; fail a thousand times. A speck of dust in the Dharma dance, say go, and that is that, say go, and I’ll be gone, just a little grain of sand. Shinjin datsuraku, shedding, moulting this bodymind. Is this bodymind even mine? Not sure about that. Autumn trees were made barren overnight by the storm. This is theatre, someone suggested—in the deeper sense, perhaps, as a space where reality is allowed to show up, where infinity floods this paltry thing, this tattered robe on a stick is transfigured with eternal longing.
And so, how does ‘traditional’ practice compare to my experience of a self-confessedly secular approach to the Dharma? It may not be fair to compare the two. Yet it seems to me that in the latter mode teachers become more predisposed to projections and the transference of unacknowledged power—attributed to their person rather than the affective current of the practice itself. Could it be that the hierarchy of the less desirable kind becomes stronger when it is unspoken, hidden under a veneer of liberal talk? Apart from the fact that there is a marked difference between a (low-cost) sesshin with a sangha and a (pricey) retreat with a group of, say, mindfulness customers; horses for courses, I guess. Fredric Jameson, who died at the end of September 2023 aged ninety, would say that a true secular dimension is one where the communicational noise instituted by money is absent or nearly absent. In this sense then Stonewater is both religious and secular.
Religious in the etymological sense of reverence—for something vaster than ‘me’—be it a living tradition or reverence for life and death itself, this very life-and-death streaming through my bodymind. Secular in the sense of an affordable, approachable, non-esoteric, gimmicky or precious ‘spiritual place’, but in the sense of a communal space where the depth, infinite subtlety and sheer ordinariness of practice is available to anyone.
I am inspired by how effortlessly yet firmly Roshi holds the seat while allowing us full autonomy to do our thing and to learn the task at hand with no pressure or interference. There is much for me to learn here, understanding the value of teamwork in a real sense.
Of course, this strong sense of being in the same boat with others doesn’t take away my own aloneness. On the first night of the autumn sesshin, lying awake in the shed rattled by howling wind and pelted by heavy rain, I remembered Basho’s haiku:
A weathered skeleton
in windy fields of memory,
piercing like a knife.
I am that skeleton, and although I am alive and breathing on this stormy night, I have been dead for a hundred years. It doesn’t get lonelier than that. And yet.
Also: how fast things change when I am willing to enter the stream. Wet yellow leaves in the timid sun at Lancaster station on my way to Fell End linger on the branches, not a trace of my passing here after the summer sesshin a few months earlier.
I don’t feel that the strong communal element of Stonewater takes away my own sense of responsibility. I had a taste of this when I was given the opportunity to lead a zen retreat in early November at Fell End titled, after Maezumi Roshi, ‘Appreciate Your Life’. It was made effortless by our generous hosts at Stonewater, a community I am proud to be part of. Blessed by sunny, mild weather, with a hazy full moon night on the last day as in the best zen tradition. Blessed by Roshi’s presence on the first two days and his pithy, humorous and compassionate talk; by Sophie’s superb cooking, by Emma’s painstaking time-keeping and by Stephan’s solid, loving presence, the whole thing felt graceful yet intense, heart-breaking-opening yet joyous. I am grateful to all participants, most of them new to a zen retreat, for their sincerity and commitment to practice. Tentative at first when stepping into the semidarkness of our beautiful zendo, by the end of the week, they were bellowing the four bodhisattva vows with the poise of old-timers.
In many ways ‘zen-lite’, the retreat nevertheless had the backbone of zazen intact, leaving room in the afternoon for dreamwork as a group and for a gentle, butoh-inspired movement that centred on ideas about time—the desire to redeem the past while being propelled into the future. The inspiration for that came from Walter Benjamin’s essay ‘Angel of History’ and from an arresting line in Dōgen who, commenting on Ch’an Master Po-Chang, says: Do not vainly cherish life. Do not foolishly dread death.
The experience encouraged me in my own practice and moved me in ways that I don’t really understand. That twenty virtual strangers could hang out together for a week in silent harmony with deep moments of meeting gives me hope in a world where spaces for joy, compassion, and shared endeavour are being increasingly eroded.
I cherished in particular those moments before dawn zazen, next to Stephan, lighting a candle and incense by the shrine of our ancestors, reading the names of those who came before us and continue to inspire us.