My Kind of People
Graphic by Amado Bajarias Jr., who produced this for the third issue of the Maginhawa Street Journal.
This piece was first published by the Maginhawa Street Journal whose founders include certain characters such as myself. To read the piece in the magazine, please click here.
We don't talk.
And if we do, it usually takes place after meditation sessions (or "sits," as we call them) and it's not much. The weather, mainly.
Of course, small talk hasn't prevented friendships or relationships from developing.
But then again, it's not as if anyone joined the group to look for a new BFF or someone interesting to have dinner with next Saturday night.
People continue to join the group because a part of them remain in search for something ineffable — the meaning of life, peace of mind, fulfillment, or perhaps even what our Zen teachers call the realization of the True Self.
I haven't been there nor have I done that.
And now, as someone who continues to sit for 25 minutes everyday for the past eight years (save for the few days when I got ill), I don't think my spiritual equipment — such as it is — was built for anything special. But I remain grateful that I still have the time and space for my practice, especially during this whole pandemic.
The last time I sat with a group of fellow practitioners was in January 2020 in the zendo where I am a member of.
It wasn't a regular weekly sit that lasted for three hours and held every Sunday morning.
It was a sesshin — meditation boot camp; a regimented retreat that lasts anywhere from three to five days.
Each day, you wake up before dawn, do stretching exercises, and practically do nothing else but to sit on the floor, propped up by pillows and cushions, and stare at a blank wall for 25 minutes for several times the whole day.
Once the bell was rung, indicating the end of the sit, we would stand up, turn right, and march slowly around the sitting area. We would follow the pace and the lead of the person in front of us.
After five minutes of kinhin, we would return to our places, resume sitting, and repeat the whole thing all over again until about nine in the evening.
During the sesshin, we sat together, ate together, prayed together, chanted together, and marched together.
But we didn't talk, let alone look at one another because it was not allowed. Some of us didn't know each other's names.
We were simply bound by one thing and one thing only: our sitting practice.
Ever since the lockdown last year, I have managed to increase my sits to twice, thrice, even four times a day. Sometimes, late at night, as my practice goes deeper, I find myself longing to attend those sesshins with strangers once again. These strangers, after all, were my kind of people.
