This is the transcript of a talk I gave to the Zenways community in December 2023.
I recently came back from a sesshin, and one of the things I noticed afterwards was the contrast between being on retreat and returning to ordinary life.
During a sesshin, everything is organised around practice. There is a timetable. We are told when to sit, when to walk, when to eat and when to work. Meals are prepared. The structure is already there, supporting us throughout the day.
Then we go home.
Suddenly we have to cook, work, talk to people, listen to them, make decisions, deal with responsibilities and respond to things we did not expect. The structure of the retreat disappears and ordinary life begins again.
But perhaps this is where practice becomes particularly interesting.
What happens if we begin to treat everyday life as an ongoing retreat? Not by trying to reproduce the conditions of a sesshin at home, but by bringing the same attention to the situations that are already there.
Life constantly gives us opportunities to notice our reactions. Something does not happen the way we wanted. Somebody says something we do not like. We are tired, busy or irritated. Plans change. Things go wrong.
How do we respond?
This is where practice can move beyond the meditation cushion.
There is a Japanese expression I find useful: Nari Kiru. It can be translated in different ways, but one meaning is “to become completely” or “to become cut off.”
When walking, just walk.
When eating, just eat.
When cooking, just cook.
When listening, just listen.
This can apply to almost anything we do: walking, running, cycling, taking the dog out, preparing food, listening to music, eating or doing the housework.
Even hoovering.
Hoovering may not immediately sound like a profound Zen practice, but perhaps that is exactly the point.
I can hoover the floor while thinking about work, tomorrow, Christmas dinner or something somebody said three days ago. My body is in the room with the hoover, while my attention is somewhere completely different.
Or I can notice what I am actually doing.
The sound of the hoover.
The movement of the body.
The floor.
The furniture I have to move around.
Just hoovering.
We do not need to make anything mystical out of it. We do not need to turn housework into a special spiritual activity. It is already what we are doing.
Nari Kiru can become a simple experiment: what happens when I give myself completely to this activity?
And perhaps this brings us to Great Doubt.
Who is walking?
Who is cooking?
Who is listening?
Who is doing the hoovering?
We do not necessarily need to answer these questions. We can carry them into the activity itself.
Christmas is approaching, and for many of us our normal routines will change. We may spend more time with other people. We may travel, cook, eat, shop or find ourselves in situations we would not normally encounter during the rest of the year.
All of this can be practice.
Perhaps we do not need to divide our lives into the moments when we are practising and the moments when we are not.
We can sit when we sit.
Walk when we walk.
Cook when we cook.
Listen when we listen.
And yes, hoover when we hoover.
In a moment we will practise zazen and kinhin together.
As we do, perhaps we can bring Great Doubt with us.
Who is sitting?
Who is walking?
No need to rush towards an answer.
Just sit.
Just walk.
Life is practice.
Practice is life.
