The Cloud of Forgetting
"I discovered the cloud of forgetting (well, rediscovered - it’s been around since the 14th century) in Chigwell, on a week-long retreat during lead-grey days in late winter, in a place so peaceful it was hard to believe that north London’s traffic-artery was pumping a stone’s throw away. For more than a hundred years the nuns of the Sacred Heart of Mary and Jesus have lived at the end of the Circle Line where city merges into countryside. Their gentleness permeates the late nineteenth century buildings with their solid spacious rooms and large windows. The all-but invisible sisters provide a clean, quiet, warm house for retreatants, and incredibly delicious home-cooked food. Silence has found its home in this place and moved in.
I slept well and deep and long. That, perhaps, was also to do with a gruelling routine of six hours zazen each day, sitting Japanese-style on a hard cushion placed on a folded blanket, facing the wall. Plus two hours sitting - facing inwards - for teaching and Mass. The week was spent in silence apart from these sessions - and the possibility of a one-on-one audience with the Zen Master (a Jesuit priest) if required..."