Crossing Nebraska

Some years ago I had the good fortune to stumble upon a weeklong meditation retreat in the wooded Uplands of Indiana led by a teacher whom I’d never heard of before. With the exception of its duration and the fact that it was in a natural setting and in the Soto Zen tradition, I had no idea what to expect. My job, simply enough, was to show up and remain open to experience. Anyway, after arriving and taking one look at the schedule posted on the door of that little rustic cabin turned zendo – the fourteen daily periods of seated meditation (zazen) separated by brief periods of walking meditation (kinhin) – the first experience that I opened up to was that of fear! Fourteen fifty minute periods of zazen each day! Could I physically take it? Could I mentally take it? I didn’t know!       The schedule struck me as dauntingly unrelenting – nothing but zazen and kinhin interspersed with just enough time to eat and sleep and attend to the barest of personal hygien...

Zen student to teacher: "I come seeking liberation." Zen teacher to student: "Who has enslaved you? Show me your chains!" + I’d departed from Shoshoni that morning with 100 miles of ‘rattlesnake country’ to ride through before arriving in Casper, Wyoming – my evening destination. I pedaled slowly, knowing full well that the afternoon would bring the hottest weather that I’d ridden in all year, and my longest ride in many, many a year. And on top of all of that I was tired. I was tired before I’d even begun, still recovering as I was from the sinus infection that had laid me low back in the Tetons, and the long ride from Cody to Thermopolis and then up through the Wind River Canyon – back in time and smack dab into the center of a raging thunderstorm. (See  Desire, Aspiration, and Doing What We Can .) But none of that was of any consequence anymore, for there was nothing left to do but ride. Now, it might seem as though having nothing left to do would epit...