Over the last few days, I have had the pleasure of traveling with my mother. Her profession as a flight attendant has given us a lifetime of experience in, and excitement for, world travel. This time, she acquired back-to-back work trips to Milan, Italy.
Bookended by mother-daughter time and a paid-for hotel, I had two days to traipse through northwest Italy solo. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I was drawn to northern Italy's alpine lakes and mountain ranges.
While there, a local teenager pinned their favorite swimming spot on my Google Map; where he spends his every Sunday. When I arrived, I realized I needed further direction. There was construction obscuring my path, and I was desperate to get in the water. Using my limited Italian vocabulary, "bagno" and "nuotare," I got my point across. A construction worker came to direct me. To my surprise, he began to lead me.
In situations like this, I am starkly aware. Me, a solo traveling woman, in a new and relatively quiet context, being led by someone I do not know. I am calculated in my decision-making. I felt comfortable enough to continue. I was grateful.
We were walking between gorgeous stone villas, beside a glacial lake that reflected turquoise, with vines of flowers bringing pops of bold colors and scents in and out of the scene. It was beautiful.
At some point, we began walking down a narrow corridor; flanked by a flowered fence and a stone wall. It seemed we were getting close. I witnessed this person glance at his surroundings, and knew something was coming. He turned to me and commented, in very broken English, that I was beautiful. I responded saying thank you, and that the lake was beautiful.
In the moments to follow, in this narrow corridor, this man tried to kiss me twice and cupped his hand on my butt (with wide and wandering fingers). I am grateful that I did not feel panic or anxiety. My nervous system stayed regulated. My outstretched arm and open palm created and maintained distance. I was direct and firm, saying "No." "Stop." As I walked away, I felt his hand on me. I caught his hand with my own, my grip controlling his hand, and said, "That Is Enough."
I could feel the fire and earth of my own presence. He felt it, too, it seems. He stopped.
I arrived to my destination and he left. My swim was refreshing. Surrounded by mountains and with clouds over my head, I thought, "In all of my years of travel, and my life full of living, I have never had someone think they could touch me like that."
While exiting, I saw him again. He kept his distance and waved.
This was a unique experience. It could have gone many different ways. Statistically, most assault cases occur within preexisting relationships. Regardless, this is what took place.
I decided to write to you to remind you: Practice using your voice. Use it firmly and do not let your conviction waver. Understand your own stress responses and develop tools that help you regulate quickly. Learn to slow down and respond. Train your reactions. Find a dojo, or a gym with a punching bag. Find a workshop. Remember, you hold immense power.
Not long after the recent presidential inauguration, Sensei spoke after class as we were seated in a circle. He reminded us that Chiba Sensei had not been a dual citizen of Japan and the United States. It was only possible for him to live and teach here because of open immigration policies—and none of us would be where we are now if he had not been allowed to remain in this country.
As Sensei spoke, the wheels were already in motion to freeze access to the United States for refugees and migrants, to make it an even bleaker hell for asylum seekers to cross our borders, and to create an atmosphere of terror for those undocumented people already here in the country. I have noticed the impacts of these policy changes in the school where I work, a high school exclusively for newly arrived immigrant teens. In early spring, we would usually be admitting a new student every few days in hectic but jolly rolling admissions—not this year. My classes are small; we’re starting to worry about what will happen if no new students show up in September. So many empty seats and stories we won’t be a part of.
I focus on the students who are here. They are the bravest, most vibrant, hungry-for-more young people I have ever met. I find it extremely valuable to talk to these teenagers at this time, because they know so much more about what it’s like to live in an autocracy than I do. They say things to each other like, “What are you doing not reading? Don’t you know there are places where girls aren’t allowed to read? Or where this book would be banned?” This isn’t a hypothetical, but a memory of their lived experience. They come from countries where they’ve been bullied for speaking their indigenous languages and silenced for asking about the minority cultures their grandparents belong to. They come from places where it isn’t safe to voice dissent, and they came here hoping to find a society where they could learn how to wield free speech and use it to uplift the people in the countries they left behind.
One evening after school a few weeks ago, a small group of kids was gathered in my classroom taking turns playing music videos for each other (and me, fascinated observer) on the smartboard. A girl from Russia put on a song by a dissident artist and stood beside the screen to translate the meaning as the music played. “It’s talking about the feeling when you want to go home, you want to go to a place you loved, where you felt safe, but that place doesn’t exist anymore. So you can’t go back,” she said. Everyone could relate, no matter where they were from originally. After we had spoken about this loss, this exile—something very real for many of my students, who truly cannot return home—one of them turned to me and said, “You should write about this, Ms. Clark.” I was taken aback, thinking, I’m not the one to talk about these things that aren’t my story. In retrospect, I think what she meant was, “It isn’t safe for us to be open about these things, but you have a voice right now—you should use it.”
In this moment, no one restricts me. No one censors me. I can speak freely, sincerely, from my heart, with no fear. This is a gift I do not want to waste by saying nothing, or lose through lack of vigilance, or keep only for myself. What I want to say is this: already, we have lost the invaluable contributions of people who might have come here but now will not arrive; whether they are full of potential like my students or powerful teachers like Chiba Sensei, it is the height of arrogance to close the door on people who have the capacity to help us grow beyond our small, bounded selves. And already, the young people who came here with the hope of finding freedom of expression are finding disillusionment and repression instead; I want them to be safe, and I want them to be heard, and I will fight for this.
A few days before sesshin, I watched a documentary following novice monks at Eihei-ji, a large temple in western Japan. Aside from the many hours of zazen, the recitations of the sutras, and the continual cleaning of every inch of the monastery, one of the most striking moments for me was seeing the way that they brushed their teeth in the morning. As they brush, the monks cup their mouths and noses with their hands, then lean all the way into the basin and spit gently into the drain to avoid spattering. Washing their faces was similarly precise. It was clear that these ablutions were following a prescribed method. Watching this, the thought that came into my mind was something like, “Oh, it really is every moment there.”
Monastery life demands complete commitment. The monastic rule is designed to enforce continual mindfulness at all hours of the day and night. The abundance of procedures, rituals, ways of doing - there is a specific form that is followed in nearly every action, not just during spiritual observances. The form is an all-encompassing standard which defines the daily life of a monastic.
Sesshin feels like a glimpse of that monastic form, for just a few days in an enclosed setting. Rigorous attention to detail, mindful conduct, and keeping one’s composure in the face of difficulty are especially foregrounded by the experience of sitting, walking, and cleaning, day after day. Every participant is expected to commit fully - with no choice but to keep sitting, there is no respite from the mental, physical, and emotional challenges that arise. I experienced moments of profound internal chaos, but no matter how deeply I sank into despair, anger, or near-mania, the sesshin continued, completely unaffected. Every awful memory and grandiose delusion ultimately passed without a trace. In those moments I was deeply grateful for the presence of the form. Doing my best to surrender to the experience, with no way to mitigate painful insights, I did see a little more clearly how this form pervades the practice at all times.
The dojo is always a zendo, whether or not a sit or a sesshin is happening. The monastic form is not separate from the martial art. The practice of paying attention and staying wholly present should extend to every moment in the space. If zazen is an opportunity to observe one’s internal arisings in a composed, controlled environment, aikido is an opportunity to experience that amidst movement and unpredictable energy. After class, cleaning the mats and tidying up is an everyday renewal of commitment, and an expression of gratitude. Hand-scrubbing a spotless floor for the second or third time in a day may feel a little odd, but the purpose of doing so goes deeper than just removing dust and footprints.
Sesshin as a passing experience might lay some of this bare, but it is dependent on one’s personal commitment to the practice to remain awake after the sit is over. Part of practice is continually testing one’s own limits - not only of physical ability but the capacity to maintain awareness in any situation, whether strenuous and chaotic, or straightforward and predictable. Staying committed to the form in extremity as well as in tranquility, and enduring both in exactly the same way!