October 30-31, 2021, Sesshin at the Tora Kan Dojo.
An immersion.
I love to observe the light that changes from dawn to night and filters through the windows of the Dojo, casting shadows and reflections while we are sitting in Zazen.
The scent of incense swirls around our stillness. I feel that I slide more and more and I immerse myself.
Then the sounds. On the one hand the touch of wood, on the other the lively voice of a small bell, while the delicate copper of a bigger bell speaks to us, giving precise instructions. And then it is a symphony. Wrapped in the recitation of sutras, wrapped in different rhythms, an ancestral drum sounds like the beating of a heart, sudden syncopations, yet in perfect synchrony, a chorus of voices, high and low, in which we can lose ourselves, get scared, find ourselves again, and retrace the thread of the sound, the intonation, the verse, the rhythm, the heart of the other people sitting in Zazen, the breath of the near one, the breath of the distant one, the breath of the earth, the breath of the universe.
I remember many years ago, when I started the Zen practice, that Master Paolo Taigō Kōnin Spongia said “you cannot be present at the recitation of a sutra without participating.”
An ancient Sardinian phrase says “No ti podes bagnare kena ti infundere”. You can’t get wet without getting soaked.
Immersion.
Thanks to Master Paolo Taigō Kōnin Spongia for having consolidated the Zen practice in the Dojo over the years, and thanks to Master Federico Dainin Jōkō Sensei for having orchestrated, with great wisdom, the rite, the poetry and the magic of this wonderful Sesshin.
