Intensive(?) Zazen... err.... I Mean "Temple Life Training" at Sojiji

Last Saturday, without thinking straight, I trucked down to Tsurumi for five days of zazen at Sojiji Temple. As it turns out, what I had gotten myself into wasn't an intensive zazen sesshin, but rather more like a "come and see how the monks live" type of retreat. The first day started at 9am, but since we had to get orientated to temple life, there was no actual zazen until about 7pm.
The day consisted of learning how to use "oryoki," which is a three bowl set with a place mat, a napkin, chopsticks and cleaning stick wrapped up in a nice, neat package that the user has to be able to undo and then retie perfectly for each meal. The steps (and chants associated with eating) change depending on the time of day. We practiced for two hours. Every aspect of temple life is rife with ritual, which causes two things to happen. One: the actual time devoted to said activities (eating, bathing, etc) is reduced to about five minutes even though up to a half an hour is set aside to do them. Two: Concentration becomes necessary for everything. One of the roshi who was kind enough to lecture us on zen practices summed it up like so: "The new monks, after they get here and have their heads shaved for the first time, go through what we call, "24 hours of zen." Everything they do is zen; focused and unforgiving. The mind is given no time to be lax. We got the abridged version with 45 minute breaks set aside throughout the day, which we were grateful for after getting up at 3:30.

By the second day, the amount of zazen went up to about four hours, which was less than I thought it would be, but still better than nothing. I'm looking forward to Dogen Sangha's retreat in September. It sounds like it will be more down to earth... and more zazen!