We were sitting in the muted light from the lanterns on the walls. The scent of incense hung in the air. Each of us had been sitting in the same cross-legged position on the wooden floor for a good many hours, and it wasn’t even dusk yet. We were on day seven of a sesshin, or silent meditation retreat.
Such stillness can be vexing, for one has to confront the mind directly. Inevitably, one realizes that the mind is quite limited. If one truly pays attention to its mechanics, then one become acutely aware of how just about six or seven thoughts – mostly worries and strange obsessions and a catalog of physical discomfort as we had been sitting in the same position for such a long time – run through the mind in a seemingly continuous loop, repeating themselves ad nauseum.
The goal of the marathon meditation is to ultimately give up on the mind altogether – to release its primacy, and somehow reach a space of inner tranquility. But I couldn’t find the equanimity – the same few thoughts circled around and around in my head.
Suddenly, a rooster crowed. It must have been in the temple, wandering the hallways, it seemed so close. It crowed again. A flood of questions scurried through my head. How did the rooster get into the meditation hall? Who did it belong to? Why was it crowing at this hour? Aren’t they supposed to crow in the morning? This rooster had captured my imagination, and I realized that I had, if only just for a moment, forgotten all about those repeating thoughts and worries. I had become completely absorbed in this rooster.
Artists ask questions. Our own imagination takes over our consciousness. We become incredibly focused on fashioning something tangible out of the void that questions open up for us. The Rinzai school of Buddhism has formalized this process and distilled it into pure questioning meditation, or koan. Followers play literary games. The contemplation of each game, such as an unsolvable riddle, creates an all-encompassing attention that allows the meditator to absorb themselves in something other than the rut of thought that the mind clings to.
This rooster saved me during this meditation retreat. I was able to finally find peace with myself, via a directed line of questioning. And afterwards, I never located the rooster. I don’t know if he ever really existed.
