heatherpierson posted: " (My seat in the meditation hall, claimed by my scarf before the retreat began.) By day three, I had begun to settle into the routines of my retreat life - the bells, the meals, my morning service work, the sitting, the walking, the standing, my aftern"
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(My seat in the meditation hall, claimed by my scarf before the retreat began.)
By day three, I had begun to settle into the routines of my retreat life - the bells, the meals, my morning service work, the sitting, the walking, the standing, my afternoon walk in the woods, the cups of tea.
My view of the teachers from my chair in the meditation hall, left to right, was Catherine, Yanai, Jess, and Cara. Each one of them was a beautiful and unique embodiment of presence.
Yanai, who sat every day on the zabuton second from the left, offered a reflection at one of the first sittings that really stuck with me. He simply noted how amazing it was and is to be able to look another human being in the eyes, to simply notice them, take them in with curiosity and wonder, and think, 'Interesting creature!', that last word rendered as 'CREE-CHAH!- in the cadence of his New Zealand accent. He used this phrase more than once throughout the retreat.
I noticed that he really lived this, and not just in the hall - in small group meetings, in the lobby, in any common area where teachers and yogis might cross paths, I would notice how warmly he greeted each pair of eyes with his own.
I wanna be more like that.
Then, one morning, I saw something that I could not unsee. In a rather sleepy moment in a morning sitting, I opened my eyes and gazed at the teachers - all four of them practicing in their dignified postures - and I noticed that, from my chair in the back of the hall, Yanai looked as if he had an exquisite pink orchid growing from the top of his bald head. Inwardly, I laughed - and thought, 'INTERESTING CREE-CHAH!'
At other challenging moments throughout the retreat - when I was feeling lonely, or sad, or bored, or sleepy - if Yanai was on the cushion, I would open my eyes and take in this brief moment of goofiness, and it was always enough to rebalance me, to remind me that, at every moment, no matter what else is happening, I am in a unique position to notice things that are as random as they are beautiful.
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