I once read about Vipassana romance, an infatuation you develop with someone on a silent meditation retreat. My fantasies or daydreams, while few, have not been as dramatic. They typically arise when, after days and days of silence, when no matter how hard I try, I find it difficult to remain focused, when I feel mentally and emotionally exhausted and struggle not to be trapped in my thoughts, obsessions, pain, and frustration.  Then I am all too happy to check out other people, and that sometimes leads me down rabbit holes.   

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Thankfully, after years of practice, I can keep my mind clear for longer periods of time, although some retreats are better than others. Otherwise, I would have given up a long time ago. Most of my retreats have been at Zen Buddhist centres (dojos), and Hokyoji (translated from Japanese meaning Catching the Moon) will always be closest to my heart. It straddles the Iowa-Minnesota border in a rural area with lush fields, valleys, and forests, and like many retreat centres, it is a place of refuge, a place to step back from the frenzied pace of modern life, to engage in silence, stillness, and contemplation. 

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Even in such peaceful surroundings, little and big things can cause things to unravel, unglued. It can be like turning on a light bulb in my mind. Oh, I didn’t know that was there. Where did it come from? I might get angry and think I can’t stand another minute of looking at all my defects, or simply hangry, the intense irritation which comes from being hungry.  Those are the times I might be most tempted to check out other people, but when it happens, it’s never simple and it is never the same. Maybe I am trying to make a connection, to not feel so alone. When we are moving around at meals, on forest walks, when I can’t talk to people, when we are supposed to look downward, I steal glances into people’s faces, try to pick apart their facial expressions, unconsciously trying to find a window into their souls. To be honest though, it is not always peoples’ souls that I am looking for, but instead merely taking an inventory of who is sitting on chairs, sitting in lotus position, who is wearing special articles of clothing indicating their level of devotion, who constantly squirms or coughs, sniffles, or gets up and leaves the hall while we are meditating. Some know all the rituals, some none, and some who are familiar but not always fully well versed with Zen practice. These ruminations, however, often make me feel ashamed of my shallow thoughts and lack of attention.

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I can also be plagued by both minor (which seem huge) and more existential dilemmas. I get incredibly frustrated by my inability to keep still because of cramps in my legs or needing to scratch my nose or my bum. My sleeves become covered in tears and snot. While exploration of my psyche can be illuminating, I never know where my mind might take me. Sometimes, I drift into warm memories of people, experiences, and places, like hiking in bamboo forests with my daughters in Thailand, a road trip into the Rocky Mountains with my family, having a leisurely lunch with my mother on a restaurant patio on a perfect summer afternoon. Other times, it can bring up painful memories and regrets like not being attentive and present with my sister when she visited me three weeks before dying suddenly at the age of thirty-two, the grief of not being able to be with my mother when she passed, my daughters witnessing the battles with my ex-husband. It feels like plunging into a space both familiar and unfamiliar.

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Breakfast at Hokyoji was one of my favourite times of the day. After meditating for forty-five minutes, we would eat, sitting in a circle around a bonfire. In the dark, we held our bowls of oatmeal and instant coffee, our figures hidden in shadow. I would feel comforted by the hot food and the flames from the fire in the cold chill of morning. Our silence seemed to heighten the beauty of this time together, joined in our efforts to break through delusion and attachment, to find joy and meaning, to make sense of our lives.  All this felt healing and sacred. 

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During retreats, as part of my inventory, I find myself drawn towards (and sometimes intimidated by) those who I imagine possessing detachment, equanimity, and mindfulness; qualities to help attain enlightenment. One of those people was Tim. I first met Tim at Hokyoji, and over several days I created a picture of him in my mind which told me he might be well on his way to enlightenment. Although we both faced the wall during meditation, he was directly in my line of vision when we faced inwards to listen to dharma talks. He looked serious, monk-like, except instead of being bald, he had a dark full beard. His movements seemed precise and relaxed, and he possessed a calm demeanor. I found it interesting that we were the only people who slept in tents, while everyone else slept in the dormitory. I have always liked to have my own space at night on retreats, and I assume Tim did too. He told me later that he kept potato chips in his car, to supplement our simple diet, and I wondered if that what part of the reason he liked to sleep in a tent as well. By the end of the week, I decided that Tim was probably a philosophy professor, writing texts about ancient Buddhist scripture, a vegetarian and meditating for hours each day. 

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When we finally break our silence, I am surprisingly at first reluctant to do so. The sound of peoples’ voices seems jarring, and I need time to ease myself into conversations. When I finally did speak to Tim, I realized that the picture I had created came partly from my imagination and partly stereotyping. He told me that he worked in a post office, which made me feel foolish because …duh... postal workers can be serious Zen practitioners. At the end of a later retreat, the first thing Tim said, “I don’t remember your hair being so red.”  I just laughed and realized that he too was not so close to enlightenment either. 

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One afternoon, at the end of my last retreat, I noticed an orange towel hanging from a clothesline flapping in the breeze. I decided to write a poem connected to that experience, not knowing that the towel belonged to Tim. I don’t know how it came up in conversation, but when I mentioned my poem, he told me that the towel was his. As the poem was not finished at the end of the retreat, Tim asked me to send the final version to him, which I did. It is titled Seeing Orange.

      …. One sun-drenched afternoon
      beneath the shade of a cottonwood tree,
      I see and am seen by a bright orange towel 
      on a clothesline waving in the breeze, 
      its beauty washing hot tears down my face.
      A sunrise of fabric inviting me within, 
      soaking me with its warmth  
      as it glides across the horizon. 
      I will carry this orange towel,   
      spread it across this field under the sun, 
then under the moon and stars.

Since sending that first poem, I have been sending one poem per month to Tim for nine years. I would not say that I know Tim well, in fact, I still know little about his family, his friends and his everyday life. Yet even though we have spent only ten days together over an eleven-year period, almost exclusively in silence, I consider him to be a good friend. Perhaps, even if we don’t always know the details of a person’s life or get them wrong, being together in silence may free one’s intuition and perhaps allow us to better understand the essence of a person. What I do know is that Tim is funny, generous, empathetic, and in love with life and his enormous family. 

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The details I have learned about Tim include his life in Iowa, his wife Theresa, fairies and gnomes, his photography, his extraordinarily beautiful and bountiful garden, working in a post office, his dog Annie, and what it is like living in a Republican state. I even read his book written by him and Sheila the Zen Dog, which expounds from a canine perspective the history, practice, and wisdom of Zen Buddhism. The book is titled Zen Unleashed, which says a lot about Tim’s down to earth approach to Buddhism.

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Our emails are not usually long, although some are longer than others. He likes many of my poems, and when he doesn’t, he tells me why. I value his feedback and funnily enough, it is because he doesn’t read many books, and never reads poetry that I find it helpful, as he is unburdened by other people’s analyses and opinions. If he likes my poems, I am pleased. If he thinks they are nonsense or they don’t speak to him, that’s fine with me too. I don’t know how long I will keep sending poems, but I don’t have any plans to stop right now. Eventually I will run out of poems. I hope that day never comes.