I will be attending the Black Mountain Zen spring sesshin for 7 days starting this Saturday.

This is a traditional Zen meditation retreat. Off-grid, off-line and off-piste. A chance to encounter the great matter up close and personal.

“Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days’ worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.”
― Ryokan

One side effect (it is a feature not a bug) of sesshin is that for seven days I get to remember what life is like without AI and algorithms and social media and disturbing news cycles.

Enforced simplicity replaces the morning screen reach with the significantly deeper satisfaction of cupping a coffee, sitting comfortably in a shaft of warm sunlight and listening to the dawn chorus of birdsong.

“How could we discuss
this and that
without knowing
the whole world is
reflected in a single pearl?”
― Ryokan