One Blade of Grass by Henry Shukman

Author:Henry Shukman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781640092624
Publisher: Counterpoint
Published: 2019-08-01T16:00:00+00:00

ONCE, WHILE ANDI WAS TOURING, I stayed for longer than just a week’s retreat and was granted temporary resident status, which meant a bunk, hard up against a plywood wall, in a cabin in the woods. On the other side of the wall, two senior students shared a room. They were a couple, senior enough to enjoy the privilege of sleeping together. We could hear them after lights-out, their headboard banging against the wall. A quiet wail would begin, and rise in pitch until it reached a climax, after which the banging would wind down and, with a creak and a groan, the whole cabin would fall silent.

Hey, it’s Zen. Anything goes, right?

But hearing the senior monastics hard at it felt vaguely abusive of us underlings, perched on our bunks, awake in the dark. And weren’t they monks? But in Zen, monastics don’t have to be celibate.

I wanted the training, I admired the abbot, but moving in was out of the question. Quite apart from how I felt about it, I still had a life. Maybe I also had pride, self-importance, fear, consternation, wrath—a number of things that might one day have to be worn down. But whatever the case, moving in wasn’t happening.

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