5 things you might find in a zendo

incense
candles
a bell
cushion
mat

The word zendo just means a place to practice Zen. Do Zen here. You might also find people in the zendo, but not always. If it’s cold, the condensation of breath is visible in the air of the zendo.

3 things you won’t find in a zendo

shoes
hat
cellphone

Although I did see someone with special shoes in the zendo who couldn’t walk without them.

Things I have seen in a zendo

movies
teachers
calligraphy
food
drums
a dog

Things you might hear in a zendo

chanting
sneezing
crying
a bell

At the San Francisco Page Street zendo, where I first began practicing, we were sitting early in the morning as the sun was coming up. We faced the walls breathing, twenty or more of us.

Right hand holding left. This is called a mudra.

The zendo is in the basement of the building on the corner of Page and Laguna. We came in and left our shoes, bowed as we entered, found a place to sit, and began breathing in silence.

At 4:30 in the morning, the thoughts in the mind have less hold, so clearing it is less of a task.

As the minutes wore on, I settled into steady breathing.

On the other side of the wall, we began to hear a conversation on the street growing loud.

A man’s voice.
A woman’s voice.
If I was sleepy, I woke up.

The woman’s voice grew stronger as the sun grew brighter. The discussion turned into shouts. I couldn’t see the sun; I only know that it was rising.

Then she called for help.

Immediately, dozens of black-robed meditators — students, priests, novices, leaders — without bowing or saying a word, turned and filled the space between the mats, jogging out the door of the zendo.

Those of us remaining held our hands very still. My eyes were wide open, imagining the scene just feet away from me on the other side of the brick wall. I could see the man holding the woman’s wrist, his gritted teeth as he threatened her, her struggling to get away, her voice calling out into the space between night and day.

And then their voices suddenly stopped as they saw, emerging one-by-one from a door in the side of the building, people running, robes flying behind them like dark avengers, or clowns popping out of a Volkswagen bug.

Those of us still in the zendo laughed all at once, seeing the same thing: the reaction on the faces of the two people in the pre-dawn dark to this sudden appearance of Zen student superheroes.

I couldn’t hear anything else from the other side. I found my breath again.

And what happened next was the thing I will never forget.

The other meditators filed back into the zendo, bowed to their cushion, bowed away, sat on their zafus, turned to face the wall, folded their legs, cradled their left hand into their right…and we meditated silently for the last ten minutes of zazen.

Suzuki Roshi, who founded the San Francisco Zen Center says, “Our teaching is just to live, always in reality, in its exact sense. To make our effort, moment after moment, is our way.”