Darjeeling and the Zendo

Darjeeling entered the zendo, stepping in with his left foot and bowing toward the alter. He made his way to his seat greeting the others on first one side and then the other. He sat down on the zafu and then turned clockwise to face the wall. This would be his day of satori. He had been meditating for months and months, days and days, weeks and weeks, years and years and finally had come to a real zendo to make the final approach to enlightenment.

His gassho-bow had been sincere and impeccable. As he sat in the zazen cross-legged position he began clearing his mind as the sesshin master began making his way down the middle of the two rows, bamboo stick in hand. He began to focus on his breath. This was an experienced group of zazen practitioners and time vanished as they became one in mind and breath. As the period of meditation progressed, he occasionally would hear the slap of the bamboo stick on the shoulder of someone who had apparently nodded off. Whack! The strike of the bamboo reverberated in the zendo. He realized his mind had wandered and he refocused. Breath in. Pause. Breath out. He felt the footsteps of the sesshin master approaching. As he took his next breath, he realized he had developed a faint whistle in his right nostril. It was the kind of nasal whistle you get when you are trying to go to sleep and the annoying whistling of your nose prevents you from dropping off. There was nothing he could do but breathe.

The use of the bamboo stick is never intended to harm anyone, or to bring anyone pain. It is merely to bring the person’s meditation back into focus. As he continued to sit and breathe, Darjeeling’s nasal sound intensified. What was he to do? You don’t just reach up and scratch your nose in a zendo. He decided that the best thing to do was to just sit and breathe. Breath in (whistle). Pause. Breath out. He felt the presence of the sesshin master directly behind him. He held his breath for fear that the master would hear his nose whistle. Whack! Breathe! Darjeeling drew in a deep breath and his nose sounded like the Queen Mary docking in New York harbor. Breath out. Pause. Whack! Breathe! A high pitched whistle from his nose screamed through the zendo. He became embarrassed as this continued for some minutes. Whack! Whistle! Whack! Whistle! Until, finally, the gong sounded that ended the meditation. Darjeeling slinked out of the zendo and made his way back with head bowed toward his solitary monk’s cell.

He knew the inevitable meeting with the head monk would come. A knock at his cell told him it was time. He followed the resident monk toward the monastery offices anticipating his early departure in shame. The abbot greeted him kindly at the door. “Mr. Darjeeling, I understand there was a certain, shall we say, disturbance at zazen today, am I right?” Darjeeling just stood there, head bowed. “Mr. Darjeeling, please sit down.” The abbot offered him a chair. “Mr. Darjeeling, this is a highly unusual situation. Because of your curious way of breathing which causes your nose to whistle loudly, seven of the monks in zazen today attained satori. There has never been as many as this in the history of this dojo.”

Darjeeling could not believe what he just heard. He looked at the abbot who was just sitting there smiling quietly at him. He breathed in. No whistle. He breathed in again. Nothing. Then he began to laugh, and the abbot joined in. The abbot clapped his hands and the resident monk came in. He was laughing, too. “Send for the rest, young monk!” And soon, the room was filled with laughing monks who clapped Darjeeling on the back and listened intently for his whistling in-breath.