I have yet to speak to a participant in a zen sesshin who does not at some point complain about back problems. Of course, people do not typically speak about their lack of back problems, so this should not be taken as an indication that this is a universal experience. I'm sure there are people who can sit a sesshin and not experience back pain. I hate those people.When I sat on a cushion, my back pain was much more severe. I would even break into silent tears from time to time. I would rob the first aid kit in the zendo and gobble any ibuprofen and/or tylenol I could find.
For me, this pain always shows up as an area of stiffness, pain and swelling in a horizontal band across my back, roughly just below armpit level. It's a dull ache, I also feel it when standing. It's hugely annoying when one is trying to attain some imagined sense of serenity one expects from being all Holy and sitting sesshin.
A few years ago the arthritis in my knee made sitting still on a cushion well nigh impossible because of the pain. Bending my knee beyond 90 degrees for any length of time hurts. Since then, the pain in my back is still present when sitting extended zazen in a chair, but it is far diminished. Just a dull ache, but still an annoyance.
The comfy chair is the drug-free solution to the back pain I experience in sesshin. Once I sit in it, the pain goes away immediately, and if I sit in it long enough it will stay gone for the next few following periods of zazen.
I've never spoken to anyone about this, but I deduce from how highly this chair is coveted during sesshin that this may be a common experience. There are only two of them in the center, and usually about twenty people in attendance.
Early in sesshin I selfishly stake my claim. During the first break period, which comes after breakfast on the second day, after I get my coffee I will head straight to the chair for some preventative maintenance. My back isn't hurting yet, we've only been sitting for a total of three hours at this point, so I just sit in the chair enjoying the drama-free access, students are still concerned at this point with social niceties. This will soon be over.
Usually by the third rest period, which happens after supper on the third day, the chair gets claimed rapidly. We've been sitting for a total of almost twenty hours at this point. The comfy chair, and it's twin companion, will be the first seats occupied during break periods. Social niceties have been dispensed with. For those in the comfy chair, the rest of us can pound sand and choose to sit on the church pews scattered about (on the right of the chair in this picture), on the metal stacking chairs used for the classrooms, or on the floor leaning up against a wall or a post. These pieces of furniture do not possess, for me anyway, the magical powers of the comfy chair.
By the seventh rest period students are foregoing coffee so they can get the chair. Belongings are being "accidentally" left on the chair when someone gets up from the chair so that it will be unoccupied when they return. Silence can really amplify human drama, so it can get a bit over-the-top, particularly if someone is repeatedly scheming to get the chair.
Zen drama, there's nothing like it. The seduction of the comfy chair is just too much to resist.
