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Tag Archives: monastery
Learning to Bow, Part 5: Epilogue
Expectations, Reality So, I had decided that I wanted to stay at least another month at the monastery. I couldn’t say exactly why, only that I felt like there was so much more to explore, and I was just getting … Continue reading
Learning To Bow Part 4: Touching the Heart-Mind
The month culminated in a week-long silent intensive called sesshin, its characters written as 接心. This Japanese compound word means “touching the mind” or “touching the heart”. The second part, shin, doesn’t have an exact translation in English, and it encompasses … Continue reading
Learning to Bow, Part 3: The Schedule
We wake up around 4:50 a.m. and we would crawl out of our bunk beds, in the cabins uphill from the monastery. For me it took a lot of effort, never in my life being naturally inclined to wake up … Continue reading
Learning to Bow, Part 2: The Grounds
When I hauled my luggage up the path to the monastery, I realized I had no idea where to go. Do I just walk in the front door? Is there a different way to go to register? What’s the deal? … Continue reading
Learning to Bow, Part 1
On a sunny morning in late January, 2020, I found myself on a bus leaving Manhattan through the Lincoln Tunnel, and heading toward upstate New York. On my right and across the river, the chain of skyscrapers looked like some … Continue reading
Liam Volke 