“Being able to actually see what’s going on inside myself is just unbelievable.”
Derek Thompson is not about to let a seven-and-a-half hour drive interfere with his burgeoning practice at Hokyoji. Instead, he has come to view the trip from his home in St. Louis, Missouri to the Driftless area in southeast Minnesota as a welcome transition from the buzz of urban life into the silence and stillness of Zen practice. “The car trip is not ideal, but it really helps leave St. Louis and my job behind. It’s part of the ritual,” he says.
The 35-year-old software engineer recalls his first trip to Hokyoji in August 2025, when he traveled with his teacher Daigaku Rummé for the annual seven-day Jewel Mirror sesshin. “We’re coming up from St. Louis and it’s corn, corn, corn, corn, corn and all of a sudden the bluffs show up and they had that ancient Japanese vibe and I’m thinking, what the hell are we getting into?”
Turns out what he was getting into was an initiation into intensive practice that he loved. “There’s lots to learn, with all the rules, it’s really intense, and you’re with new people, but everyone was awesome and once you get into the rhythm you get lost in it,” he says.
The supportive, welcoming community Thompson has found at Hokyoji complements his home sangha, Confluence Zen Center in St. Louis, where he’s been practicing for about two years. Since his first time at Hokyoji, he has returned for a Caring for the Land weekend, Rohatsu, and, most recently, participated in week one of winter practice period online. He’s signed up for this month’s Caring for the Land weekend (April 18) and hopes to do a summer practice period—not to mention Jewel Mirror sesshin. “Nothing is going to stop me from doing Jewel Mirror.”
Like many a Zen student who has tried to articulate what exactly it is about the practice that beckons them to keep going, words fail Thompson when he tries to pinpoint what he has found at Hokyoji that speaks to him so deeply. Nonetheless, he manages to convey what, for him, is the heart of the matter: the kindness he has felt from other practitioners, staff, and teachers; listening to the owls and other creatures during zazen; the way the structure of long sesshins encourages deep meditative engagement. “I wish I could describe it better,” Thompson says. “Sesshins are just such an incredible experience even if they are difficult. Being yanked so far out of your life and being able to slow down is such an unbelievable opportunity and Hokyoji’s an awesome place to do it. Being able to actually see what’s going on inside myself is just unbelievable.”
Derek is a Software Engineer in St. Louis, Missouri. This interview was conducted and edited by Toku Cynthia Scott, Editor of The Jewel Mirror.
