16 Jan Through the eye of the needle

I sit next to François, who wears a big moustache and is usually on a motorcycle. He is a real ‘motard’, as the French say. François fiddles with his thick fingers to get a thread into his splinter-thin needle. “Can you try?” he whispers, because we are in silence. I show him my needle, which has a considerably larger eye. “Do you want one of those needles?” I whisper back. He shakes his head and continues to clumsy.

Minuscule knot
We have a retreat in our zendojo, but with special attention to sewing the monk’s robe. It has been a long time since I have toiled with these pointed stitches.
I used to be jealous of nuns who, while I was busy untangling a tiny knot in my thread, produced a super regular line in no time.
But today with the beautiful spring sun on the table, it goes surprisingly smoothly for me. I turn the fabric over and look at the back. To my delight, I see small regular stripes. In Zen, the back is just as important as the front.

Forgetting the time
Something else strikes me: time flies, not only for me but for all the sewing knots that are next to each other here. Every now and then, passers-by stop in front of the window. Two girls’ ears fall out of their ears: ‘No, look at it, what are they doing?‘ But I have already entered a different world. I look at myself from a distance and think: in Zen they never teach you: ‘concentrate on what you are doing’, but what Zen does do is practice that concentration. If you wander off with your thoughts, you will immediately see it in the stitches you make.

This is hard to explain in this day and age, I think to myself. Time has become so precious because we are overwhelmed with short-term stimuli. And here in the sewing room, the hours string together into slow lines with pointed stitches.

In my dreams, Zen has whispered to me the seven clues with which you can live from peace.They are not written anywhere, but in Zen you start practicing them automatically. François shouts: ‘Regarde‘. He proudly holds up his needle. Not only does he manages to curb 1200 CC, but he can also thread the thread through its super–thin needle.

Reinject calm into your work and life with Time Surfing
Reinject calm into your life with Time Surfing: the age–old Zen customs turn out to be thé key to staying on top of all stimuli in these hectic times. Not by using extra discipline and a lot of willpower, but with natural directions. The way you can learn this is just as pragmatic: you experience it so that you feel the effect and then you repeat it until it gets into your system by itself.

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