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I’m recently back from Sesshin at Yokoji Zen Mountain Center. Yokoji sits in the crook of a canyon at around 5,500 feet (1,676 meters) in the San Jacinto Mountains west of Joshua Tree National Park and about an hour’s winding drive into the high desert from Palm Springs airport.
Yokoji is a little bit of a rugged place—it sits just inside the San Jacinto Wilderness area and is isolated at the end of a dirt road, entirely off-grid, and powered by solar cells, batteries, and propane. About halfway up the steep canyon, fields of car-sized boulders necklace the center, as well as stands of coulter & sugar pines and multiple black oak. Yokoji’s courtyard is carpeted with the crushed remains of acorns, food for some very excitable and territorial blue jays, families of acorn woodpeckers, and western gray squirrels. Lower in the neck of the canyon, there are apple and pear trees—I missed the harvest by a week, but hear the apples are sweet this season and the pears on the tart side.
Fire-scarred pines are everywhere—forest fires in 2013 circled but ultimately spared Yokoji. Fire-resistant manzanita has taken hold on the more-exposed upper slopes of the canyon along the fire road that rings the center, as well as some very, very tough chaparral whitethorn, which feeds deer and bighorn sheep (more on the elusive bighorn in an upcoming post), and is the single most difficult plant I’ve ever tangled with—the thorns are like steel and cut through any work glove devised by man, as far as I can tell.
Hurricane Hilary came through in mid-August, glancing Yokoji, and the burst of moisture has kept Hurley Creek, carved through the center of Yokoji, running—a constant background murmur.
Zazen starts every morning at 5:30. My job during sesshin was Jisha—the Roshi’s attendant—and that meant my morning started earlier, making the dedication rounds with either Tenshin or Jokai Roshi, offering incense at the temple altars, around 4:45.
In the pre-dawn, there’s only one other person awake, the Jikido, brewing the morning’s coffee. In those early hours before the birds are up and working, there’s a deep quiet in the canyon, and, this sesshin, a waning moon disappearing behind the north ridge through the leaves of the black oaks. The only light in the courtyard is from the moon and the kitchen, the only sound my footsteps across the bridge, the murmur of Hurley Creek, and the occasional whistle of a tea kettle. The narrow beam of my flashlight sweeps across the carpet of crushed acorns and the worn steps from the courtyard into the Study hall, where I’ll start the morning offering incense in the Dokusan room and wait for one of the Roshis to come in.
Just before 5:00, the Jikido will wake Yokoji with rounds on the drum, runs of multiple deepening strikes on the Densho (temple bell) and sharp raps on the wooden Han that hangs beside the Buddha Hall, where we’ve been sitting zazen.
These earliest rounds of zazen each morning are my favorite time. Night’s still clinging to the courtyard and in the trees. Dawn still an hour ahead of us. The buddha hall is dimly lit, everyone settling into posture, muted sounds of footsteps and fabric dissolving into the shadowy room. There’s the ritual of handing a lit stick of incense to Roshi, bowing and heading to my cushion in gassho, taking my seat on the cushion, arranging my robes and falling into my breathing. The incense smoke an invitation to gather into the morning’s darkness and hushed silence.
My habit this sesshin is to walk the fire road every morning after breakfast, tracking sunrise breaking over the eastern ridge and firing the rocky, scarred, western slope. From the road, a few hundred feet above most of the buildings, you can see across the canyon where wrens skim along the treetops; their songs starting just after dawn and before the much louder blue jay’s warning shrieks which dominate most of the day.
One of the Jisha’s responsibilities is managing the line for Dokusan—face-to-face interviews with one of Yokoji’s resident teachers or Senior Students—which means I’m up and out of the Buddha Hall in every block of sitting and gathering students in line. It’s practice in a way I’m not used to, having to pay attention to the line, to the forms of bell ringing and the limitations of the clock and the schedule—my body has to adjust itself in a new way to Sesshin. The first few days are on the challenging side while I settle into the rhythm of the blocks of zazen, calling and managing the line, taking care of the Roshi’s time. It’s not the concentrated, focused practice of retreat I’m used to, and at first that’s unnerving—isn’t zen practice about focus? but after those first few days resistance starts to soften and begins to open into something more like opportunity. Into surrendering to the schedule of sesshin and the rhythms of the Jisha job in a way I hadn’t expected.
which is not the same as things being easy.
The sesshin week wasn’t too hot, rising from mid-seventies at the beginning of sesshin and topping out in the high eighties the last few days, which was a relief during my early-week work practice brush-clearing, but becomes more of an issue as the week goes on. The sun is relentless, and there’s no cover along the fire road where we’re working. Brush clearing is hot, dusty work, and the whitethorn in particular is unforgiving—tangled, thick, and tough—even with thick work gloves, my hands get blistered, scratched and bloodied. The whitethorn resists clearing, sometimes twisting the steel blades of the lopping tool with each snap. The first few days, after a few hours struggling to break the plants apart, my forearms twist into knots every time I reach above my ears.
The work at altitude is also harder than I expect it to be in the thinner air. That, at least, is a trade-off: with the thinness, there’s a crispness and clarity to the sky that’s peculiar to the high desert—the cloudless sky an impossibly endless cerulean blue.
Yokoji is without question a demanding place to practice, but also a rewarding one.
Cleaning the chainsaws after brush clearing, checking the oil, reattaching the chains when they’ve slipped loose, cleaning the workshop after ripping plywood sheets, making my way back up the canyon, out of work clothes and into robes before Jokai or Tenshin are ready to enter the Buddha Hall—none of that is easy. Sleepy zazen, aching shoulders and biceps from wielding the chainsaws, answering questions on form in the Dokusan line, watching the clock, settling into posture, struggling to hit the bells just right in service, cleaning the kitchen after lunch—none of that is easy. I’m constantly making mistakes, constantly reminded of my distraction. And then being distracted by judging my mistakes, and judging my distraction. It’s a möbius strip of thinking.
And then there’s breathing. Back in the Buddha Hall, and then back in the Study Hall attending to the Dokusan line. One breath. One breath. One breath. Jays shrieking outside. The creek murmuring under them. An acorn -chock- as it hits the roof. The zendo bells. The cerulean sky behind the branches and leaves of the oak in the courtyard. Just noticing. One breath. One breath. One breath. The möbius strip starts to wear itself out. Unwinding into a circle. Attention is just attention. Just noticing.
Near the end of day two my body starts to realize (my mind a few steps behind as always), What’s the difference, between practice on the cushion and practice as Jisha? Between practice on the cushion and brush clearing? Attention to whatever’s happening, after all, is simply attention—the concentrated, focused practice of retreat is all about that attention, and taking care is simply taking care. Practice is definitely all about focus, but focus isn’t limited to the cushion, or to the Buddha Hall. My body has an inkling my mind hasn’t quite sensed yet.
What’s the difference, between practice and mopping the kitchen floor?
Cleaning the chainsaws, reattaching the chain when it slips, organizing the tools after work practice, sweeping sawdust off the floor of the workshop, measuring and striking a line for a saw cut, improvising a saw guide, mopping the kitchen floor each day—taking care of the tools, one breath. One breath. One breath.
Maybe because practice at Yokoji can be so physically demanding, my body is prioritized over my thoughts. Practice occurs wherever I am in space, not wherever my thoughts are. Thoughts aren’t organizing tools, working the loppers, or draining the mop bucket—bodies do all that. Thoughts aren’t walking the fire road or listening to songbirds or feeling the sun warming skin. Thoughts aren’t clearing brush.
It’s always my body that realizes: returning over and over to bare attention and attending to the moment, whatever the moment demands, to wherever I am, in this moment, is zazen. Not limited to the cushion, not limited to the Buddha hall, not limited to mopping floors, not limited to Yokoji. The möbius strip wears itself out.
It’s bodies that take care of the tools. Bodies that walk, bow, sit zazen, sleep, and eat. Bodies that light incense.
Taking the same path around the fire road every evening, a pair of red-shouldered hawks circle in the canyon’s nightfall updrafts as the day’s heat dissipates, the sun dropping behind the jagged western ridge.
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