Calm, Cows and Koans

Not an entirely obvious combination I know, but it sums up my week in Derbyshire pretty well. After all the three-tier-wear-a-mask-don’t-touch-my-shopping-trolley drama of the preceding weeks and months, I was ready to escape while I still could. And since education was still permitted, I convinced myself that the week would be a bit of learning but essentially a retreat. Wrong.

Retreat is a hugely important part of my life now. Whereas in the past I was on a constant quest for the exotic with mandatory cocktails, now I don’t care where I go as long as I can turn my phone off and not have to talk to anyone before lunchtime. Even if it rains continuously and there’s more mud than sand. OK, that’s not strictly true. I haven’t lost my desire to travel, but that pretty much came off the menu when I left the corporate circus, and then the world closed anyway for some sort of deep clean with no apparent end date. Plus, I did want to learn.

So off I went to Derbyshire to meet my Zen teacher Daizan Roshi for a week of the intense stuff, with the added bonus that I did indeed get to turn off the tech and no one cared if I didn’t utter a word before at least three pints of peppermint tea. The days were long with a timetable that was punctuated by simple meals and copious amounts of stew. By the time we got to close our notebooks at 8.30pm my eyelids were not far behind and it was all I could do to fall into bed ready for the 5am alarm.

We did get some free time, but the quid pro quo was that during the allotted 90 minutes of freedom we had to produce a poem. (Collective groan from the group.) It didn’t take me long to work out that I could don my boots and head for the hills, come up with something to present to the group and remember what I could so as to write it down when I got back. I was desperate to get out into the beautiful countryside that was draped in Autumn finery and seemed to be winking at me through the window from my spot in the classroom.

My adventuring had mixed results. I did follow the footpaths but perhaps had not accounted for the fact that the mud was of biblical quantities, and that it started to get dark very early. The combination did not bode well the day I found myself in a field of cows. Cross ones. I had never witnessed such aggression from a free-range Fresian before and never want to again. I managed to escape with cunning rather than speed and skulked back to the Centre with a tide mark of mud around my knees, grateful not to have lost my boots (just my sense of humour.) The following day I thought it best to stick to the roads, but 80 minutes in I realised I was lost and had to beg a lift back with some kindly folk who took great relish in telling me that I’d wandered into Cheshire which had tier three restrictions.

Things were much safer on the meditation cushion. Or so I thought. We were encouraged to work with a koan. This is the practice of meditating on a question, and we were given a starter for ten of ‘who am I?’ Let’s just say that the cow debacle was a walk in the park in comparison. But there were moments of calm throughout the week and I wouldn’t have swapped it for the world. Even a close down one. My further training means that next year I will be launching a follow-up to my 8-week course for Health and Wellbeing with an 8-week course for Deeper Insight. Join me? No mud, cows or stew required.