toning

Last month's Sesshin was a 10-day Sesshin, a few days longer than usual. We got word a day or two beforehand that this would be a caffeine-free Sesshin. You may have heard the scream from wherever you are when I learned of this.

Turns out, it wasn't so bad. I mean, the first two days are rough anyway. What's a little headache behind the eyes in addition? One thing that certainly eased it was for the first five or so days, we did a practice called toning. It seemed we were doing this for 10-15 minutes each period.

Here is some video:

Not your traditional Zen Sesshin activity, but definitely skillful means. Toning has a way of allowing the breath to fill the body. We could choose to tone the sounds 'mu', 'om', or 'ah'. We were not to be striving for prettiness, or harmony, or sounding "good" or any of that. Rather, filling ones whole being with the sound, becoming the sound, allowing the sound to be large, to fill the room... this was the experience. And sometimes the focus would be completely on the body, the individual sound, and other times, the sound would weave all around the room to join the other sounds. Sometimes the sounds would migrate together, like a flock of birds lifting and landing together. Other times it was a cacophony.

I have never in my life been able to project my voice in this way. It took a couple days, but finding a way to open open open and let out a sound that was not straining, but deeply powerful. Completely surprising.

Sometimes when the room settled into the 'ah' sound, it evoked an ethereal, angelic quality. Of course, the video doesn't capture the experience at all, but maybe you can get the drift.