2018 - Sheera Joy Olasky

I consider Wednesday, May 16, 2018 to be my Zenniversary. That evening, guided by an uncomfortable work situation, a copy of Only Don't Know that I moved from apartment to apartment without knowing exactly why, and some Zen teaching that I had acquired years earlier in a previous life, I arrived at the Chogye International Zen Center of New York for an Intro to Zen session. While I don’t remember much from the evening besides a few minutes of Manu’s instruction, I do know that I left that evening having made a commitment to myself to return to the Zen Center and to continue to practice regularly. And I did.

But there’s another Zenniversary, another day when my arrival at the Zen Center felt like a first—Thursday, August 16, 2018. I had been at Kyol Che for a week at the end of July, the first half of which was led by Paul Majchrzyk Ji Do Poep Sa Nim (I started my week on a Wednesday, in the middle of Paul’s week leading). In the two months that I'd been practicing at Chogye, I hadn't yet encountered Paul, but I was excited to meet another teacher from New York. This excitement was paired with another sort of excitement, tied to a decision I had made in May: if I were going to do this practice–and I was going to do it–I would need to be much braver than how I believed myself to be, a person easily embarrassed at making a mistake, who dreaded not knowing the right thing to do and the right way to do it. So I was acting far braver than I felt I deserved to in this situation, which in turn made me very excited about how well I was doing at this whole being brave thing. Which then made me a little braver. It was an interesting time. 

Most of the details of my interviews with Paul that week have faded from my memory, except for one question that I asked him: why some chants end with the hit of the moktak and others don't? I was expecting to get the usual type of answer that people give to questions, an answer consisting of information which I would then begin processing–in other words, I was ready to start thinking. But his answer, ”Because some do,” instead made me feel a sigh of relief. I didn't have to do any of that thinking! “Some do,” and that's enough. Whatever else we may have talked about, I left that week having decided that however Paul practiced, that's how I would practice. 

Which meant that on Friday, August 3rd, I found myself standing on East 14th Street at 5:50 AM, ringing the buzzer, holding these crazy turquoise foam wedges that I convinced myself were helping relieve the pain in my back. What I did not know was that the teachers didn't attend practice on Monday and Friday mornings, and the resident was out of town. I gave it a couple more tries, then took my turquoise foam wedges and went home. 

A few emails, some details about how potential inclement weather might impact Paul’s cycling to the Zen center, and two weeks later, it was Thursday August 16th and I took the M102 bus from Central Harlem to the Zen center, still with the dumb foam things in hand, arriving at 5 a.m. This time, the door unlocked when I rang the buzzer, I entered, and we had a completely unremarkable morning practice. And yet it felt to me like a very remarkable day: I may have made a commitment to continue to practice on that first night in May, but on this day in August I decided that I wanted to be a Zen student and make the practice a focal point in my life. 

Now eight (eight?!) years, one pandemic, and one major illness later…well, here we are. And despite all that time to think about it, they elude me, the words to describe exactly why this practice, the Zen center, and the sangha has meant, and continues to mean, so much to me. So I'll answer like Paul did and just say, because they do.