We left Madrid with suitcases packed with food that we had gathered to take to our sangha companions in Cuba. It was not even a year since the project for a Zen temple in Cuba had been finalized. In October 2022 we had signed the deeds of purchase and now we were arriving with kilos of food and items that could not be found on the Caribbean island. The news in the spring of 2023 was that people were starving and there were queues of up to three days to get some gasoline.
It was the middle of June, summer was beginning and our flight was full of Cubans bringing their families all kinds of products from the free world, or rather from the free world's orgy of consumption.
At Barajas airport there were huge lines. Cubans make bundles with the clothes and belongings they bring to their compatriots, wrap them in plastic kitchen wrap and then in plastic packaging and so they can carry more things without weighing down the suitcase. Each traveler could bring two pieces of luggage, each weighing twenty-five kilos plus another ten kilos in the cabin, in addition to the carry-on bag.
Arriving at the Havana airport, we were met by maestro Michel Tei Hei, a tall, thin Cuban with a broad smile. In the midst of the airport hubbub, he blended in among the travelers and residents, and soon found us. He had obtained a "haiga" type vehicle from the fifties, the old American junk abandoned by their owners, which there they call almendrones. He picked us up with a large almendron, repainted in operating room green, and we placed the large suitcases in the cabin and the trunk.
On the road, traveling to the new temple, we overtook several wagons pulled by jumping horses, an alternative to the oil shortage. Some people walked along the edges of a bumpy road or waited patiently at dingy stops. It was like going back to the past, to the time of my childhood in Spain in the seventies when there were still animal traction and people walking along the roads and highways in the villages and the countryside.
The Kosen Shin-ji temple is located twenty kilometers from Havana, in a rural area that reminded me of Tamaulipas, in the Mexican tropic of cancer, where I lived for a few years. Everything was green, with lush vegetation and huge trees full of mangoes, soursops, avocados, anons, plums; there were also coconut, pomegranate, custard apple, banana, orange and lime trees. Tall green trees, round and stunted, palm or bush, all vegetation that gave coolness to the high temperatures of the day.
The name of the temple Kosen-shin-ji is a tribute to the Kosen sangha, to the masters Stefan and Barbara, and in Japanese means "the wisdom of the hermit".
The temple is in the area known as "La lechuga" (lettuce) with numerous little houses around the street and the road, little ranches with vegetable garden, chickens, cows and pigs. When you walk through this colony the dogs are free, they are not tied or walk on leashes or in ridiculous dresses. They lie on the road or the path quietly, watching you, wagging their tails and shooing away the flies. The children play on the road and smile, their attention is not on a cell phone or a tablet, but on the little dog, the puppy called "Nube". Everything is like a leap in the void, time stopped. A time full of life.
The property that Michel Tei Hei's Zen sangha purchased belonged to a bricklayer who emigrated to the United States in an attempt to improve his life and his prospects. A few months after selling it, the man returned to buy it back; he regretted selling it, it was his "paradise" and he had come to a life that was his "hell".
Many leave, especially young people, contemplating a future with more possibilities in other countries; in the "free" world of consumption. Michel complains that some people who are committed and orderly, end up leaving for Europe or Canada, the United States and Mexico, looking for more possibilities, a future.
For those who remain, the dojo, the practice of zazen and the Way, are a refuge, a support in difficult times; a community of mutual help where interdependence becomes more valuable to survive from day to day. At least in the sesshins they will eat well, Michel says as he opens the suitcases and discovers their contents.
The plot is an orchard, in addition to the original trees, they have planted a vegetable garden with carrots, pumpkins, onions, chili peppers, sweet potatoes... they are practically self-sufficient. We have brought them many packets of seeds and foods that do not spoil and have a lot of vegetable protein such as beans, lentils, chickpeas and soybeans, as well as olive oil and tomato concentrate.
Little by little other members of the sangha are arriving. The trip is long and complicated, even though they are only 20 km away from Havana. The monk Gustavo has hired a minibus, and they all arrive in droves, old and young, because the two girls of Andres, who is a monk, and his wife are also coming. They are young men and women, the eldest being about 40 years old. All with a big smile for meeting the members of the Spanish sangha, although Gustavo is an old acquaintance and the promoter of this new temple in Cuba. Those coming from Matanzas (only 120 kms away) or from other parts of the Island, will not arrive until the next day, after a 15-hour trip combining several buses and dead hours.
The neighbors take care of some cows, they are the cows of the Revolution, well, of the government. Yoni knows everything about cows, but they only eat grass and do not support them with feed because it is now very expensive (it comes from Ukraine). The cows are reflacated, starving, and almost all of them are anemic. Also in Cuba, as in other parts of the world, they are suffering prolonged periods of drought, and although it is now raining in the afternoons, there have been months without a single drop.
In the countryside there is no hunger; nearby there are people with chickens and pigs, although everything is very controlled by the community, because everywhere there are "political commissars" who report on the animals they raise and all the activities in the countryside (and in the city). Cubans do not have a tradition of gardening, so fertile was their island, few cultivate a garden, we are the exception. The orchard is life, insects, and birds, and flowers, and lots of fruit at any time, delicious mangos in midsummer, juicy and sweet, and guavas or plums. Eating fruit from the trees is to get back in touch with everything, with nature and with the primitive being we still carry within us; a great pleasure and a privilege.
Sleep is deep. In each room there is a powerful fan that cools you at night. The rooms are austere, but we sleep in beds, with clean sheets, or on mats; and we have a complete bathroom to wash ourselves, with running water, showers and toilets. Of course, here, as in almost all the houses, one washes oneself by means of the Cuban shower: with ladles of water (warm or hot) from the bucket we have filled. It is a simple way of life, without excesses, going back to the basics, without desires beyond what is strictly necessary, a good practice for Europeans and North Americans who come from the countries of opulence.
In the morning during zazen, the kikiriki of the roosters is heard. Nature is totally present. At dawn, while we are sitting in zazen, we hear the sounds of this community: the roosters and all kinds of birds and the croaking of frogs. When you remain silent in zazen, all these sounds arise, the conversations that people have on the street, which fade away as they move away.
Today we had a new practitioner: the little frog who jumped from a water pipe, joined the dojo and then the altar. She stayed for more than two hours under the statuette of the Buddha, so calm; then she posed next to the photo of master Deshimaru, and stayed there until the end.
The sangha was founded in 1997 on a trip of master Stefan Kosen. He came several times a year. And in 2005 Master Barbara Kosen took over the responsibility at Stefan's request. Since then she has been attending the sangha, although other teachers have also come: Pierre, Ingrid, Vincent. Michel Tei Hei has known the liturgy of all of them, without rigidity, without orthodoxy, each with different forms, but always in the spirit of the Way.
At the beginning of the 21st century, they tried to give legal form to the sangha, creating an association. They went to register it in the appropriate organism and they were being given a long time, they did not let them. They are very suspicious of any type of religious or cultural organization, because they think they could be enemies of the revolution or envoys of imperialism, etcetera, etcetera, a continuous paranoia.
I have been left without a cell phone, that is, my charger has broken and I have to conserve the little battery I have left to try to fix it when I get to Spain; then, I don't use it at all. I am completely disconnected, which is absolutely necessary. I realize that this sesshin and this trip to Cuba allows me to make a digital cure, a disengagement from computers, cell phones, websites and search engines, applications and all the digital paraphernalia in which we have been immersed for more than twenty years. Also from television, radio, soap operas and politics. Something very hygienic, very healthy for anyone. Without technology I am very happy, I have recovered the pen and paper and my ideas slip between the lines, in a natural way and with ease. I sew, listen, read and write. Although technology is essential, it is very healthy to do this kind of digital cleansing cures, which, together with a simple life without desires or purchases, makes me feel that I am doing a complete cure, body and soul.
Just before the beginning of the sesshin, during the previous days of preparation, Master Michel had to make a series of arrangements; he went to the bank and as the ATM was open and operational, there was a queue of three hours. For some years now Cubans have had to have a kind of bank account in MLC (freely convertible currency), a card to manage money and be able to acquire goods or food outside the rationing card, which provides less and less food. A three-hour queue is life, it is life standing in line, they are all queues.
When Fidel came to power, he dismantled all the sugar mills. The trade that had been passed down from father to son, the training, was lost. Since they were the first sugar producers in the world, after their withdrawal, the price of sugar went up again, because beet sugar is infinitely worse. Fidel let this industry die, arguing that there were no spare parts. Once the world's leading producer withdrew, the price of sugar went up again, but they were already out of the market. The same thing has happened with agricultural products; children no longer know what an orange is, they say that the ones they grow are exported; there are no oranges to consume. In 1995, when I first traveled to Cuba, there were oranges everywhere. Almost thirty years have passed and they are nowhere to be seen.
At the end of the sesshin we enjoyed a few days in Havana. I visited several evangelist temples, impeccable, and the church of the Cristobal Colon cemetery, in Vedado. I wandered through the twists and turns of the streets and stalls. Old Havana is splendid, it is a very beautiful city. Declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982, it has been gradually restored. But in these hot months there is hardly any tourism and the merchants of the San José street market, try by all means that the few tourists buy in their stores.
We stayed in Vedado, an upper-middle class residential neighborhood, in its heyday at the end of the 19th century and after the Independence, and where there is a succession of single-family houses that were authentic palaces, and that today yawn at the idleness and lack of means of their current owners. Some houses are being recovered. Cuba lives on the foreign currency sent by emigrants, and some of them, in a very good situation, have been able to acquire houses in good condition for their resident relatives.
Our dojo is also in Vedado, in an amazing art deco building. On a third floor and with a distribution with several orientations, the breeze circulates and caresses your back while you are sitting in Zazen. Our Cuban colleagues from the sesshin have been arriving little by little, some of them coming from very distant neighborhoods and making the effort to arrive after several hours of walking or waiting for public transportation. Quite a daily feat.
For us Europeans, the practice of zazen in Cuba is an example of dignity and determination. Even with all the difficulties, people practice the Way and all that it entails. Michel Tei Hei's sangha organizes a monthly sesshin at the new temple, allows extended stays for foreign visitors, and during the Christmas vacations organizes a longer sesshin. This is when the spring temperatures attract many visitors from other latitudes. For us who live in the "free" world of consumption, visiting Cuba and practicing zazen with the Cuban sangha has been a reward and a unique experience that I recommend to everyone.
Master Michel's phone and WhatsApp in Cuba is +5353496254 and the Cuban dojo's email: zazencuba@gmail.com.Figuran on Instagram as templo_zen_kosenshinji.
