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We are here to take part in a Zen retreat. My room is small with its own washbasin. The meditation hall is a large wood-panelled room precisely checked out in black cushions, with a simple altar and flower display.

A quiet cushion
Midst the chitter chatter -
Nothing doing

Sitting on the first night and the following morning is comfortable but my mind is like the automatic search on a digital radio, nervously skipping from station to station. Lunch prepared by the nuns is clear vegetable soup followed by a plate of rice with fish and vegetables, carrots, coarse green cabbage and pur6ed beans.

Later in the day we break from sitting and I go out for a walk. On my way downstairs I pass a picture of a kitten on the door leading to the first floor bedrooms. The caption reads, ‘If nobody is perfect, I must be nobody’.

The rain is constant, dripping on the leaves, leaves mulching on the paths. At the back of the large house, where the garden slopes down to a small wood, there is an expanse of green with graves laid out in a horseshoe around a cross and a wooden bench. Silver plaques incline gently towards the empty bench, like footlights round a stage. On my way back, I note the freshly swept path at the side of the house. We all had our chores after breakfast.

Bowing in the rain
I pick clean the leaf-strewn path -
The black shiny way

Later, the sitting is physically hard but as time goes by, I settle into something very quiet and solid and then a sense of ripening and softening. The blizzard in my mind is gone and the ‘snow’ has settled, crisp and deep and even.

Supper is simple but good - tomatoes, home-made bread and pizza, coleslaw and beetroot. After tea, I put my aching and chilled body into a hot bath which melts away the discomfort.

Dry summer pulses
Lie soaking in the water pot -
Soft and expanding

The morning session goes well. The first ‘sit’ is very good, as uncomfortable as ever but I surrender myself and it seems that I become the breath. My cushion has become an enormous diaphragm and I am soft and cooking.

When the retreat ends, we have tea and the room is full of noisy laughter that sends fabulous ripples through the still pool created by our three days of silent meditation. The rain and mist of the past two days has dissolved into a crisp, clear, autumn day.

The next morning, the car bumps over a sleeping policeman on the way to the pool.

The autumn sky
Reflects quietly on the pool
And then a ripple