Finally, I sit

I got all the goodies that I think I need to sit. Yes, yes, I know you don’t need nothing but yer body, but, hell, the right tool for the right job ya know? Plus there’s reasons for these things.

Actually it don’t amount to much and I still don’t have a bell (not to mention a mokyugo (sp), but I”ll live.

I actually am really happy I found this “saddle stool” at Target and for a reasonable price. It’s narrow and dished out in the middle for comfort. I can either straddle it like I’m riding a horse, or sit like it’s a regular stool and put my feet flat on the floor. It’s just the right height and with a towel for padding quite comfy. It’ll be useful later on, perhaps as a drawing stool as well.

I have my timer, my comfy clothes ( I do miss my robe, nothing more comfortable than that) and my incense. I had to pick some up at pier one until I can get to a place that sells the good stuff. My favorite is Shoyeido.

So today, at sunup (it’s just now 6 am here) I will actually sit for a timed 10 minutes and this afternoon before dinner, another 10. I decided to start out at 10 minutes twice a day and work up to 25 twice a day in a couple weeks. I have seen that people sometimes try to push right into a lengthy sitting routine only to give up sitting at all in a week or so. My spiritual life (for lack of a better term) has its own timetable and I won’t push it.

I am just glad I have worked up to this point. Is it getting light outside? No not yet.

When I woke up

Again I see that, in returning to Zen practice, some patterns seem to be repeating. Apologies for the disorganized jumble that follows.

Today when I woke up and before I opened my eyes, there was a short space of nothing before I had the thought (something like) “Oh shit it’s late” followed by the thought “but that’s ok” followed by the thought “because there is no good or bad” followed by the thought “but if I knew that in my heart I wouldn’t have the thought ‘but that’s ok’. Then a bunch of other thoughts started raining down – analyzing, justifying, self-soothing. At that point I was lost in thinking so I dropped it until now when I could post about it.

First of all there was the wordless space of unknown duration during which I had no thoughts, but instead, just raw perception. This is a heavenly thing to me. When I was practicing regularly in the past, it happened every morning. Upon awakening there would be sounds and (if my eyes opened) sights, tactile sensations and perhaps scents but I would not judge these sensations as good or bad – at least for a short (probaby VERY short) time. I can’t really say how long that state lasts. It is a blissful feeling, but doesn’t become so until it disappears.

at this moment

At this moment, I have just watched Moonlight Mile – a beautiful movie with Susan Sarandon, Jake Gyllanhaal, Dustin Hoffman other great actors and an amazing director. You can tell I liked it. It really pulls at the heart and describes a process that most of us go through at some point – loss and secrets. So I am feeling all these emotions that have arisen and left a little aftershock, but also a sense of release and relief, melancholy. I’m feeling this, Sue sleeps in the chair and a sweet, obese young man plays nice guitar in some reality show on TV. I sense some rain somewhere. My arm hurts a little. It is very quiet. I have a feeling of tension like waiting for the other shoe.

at this moment

I have been posting various excerpts, vids, and stuff found elsewhere that strikes something in me instead of sharing anything of myself. There’s several reasons for this.

The obvious difficulty in making posts in this blog is trying to think of words that point to an experience that is beyond words. I have read admonitions in many books about getting stuck “eating the menu” or, in other words, to attempt to find satisfaction in thinking or talking about a practice that, by definition is not based in words or letters. But then there HAVE been MANY books, as I said. So, talking about the unspeakable is certainly popular. Human nature I guess.

Yes, Really




From Tricycle’s Daily Dharma

Yes, Really

Practice can be stated very simply. It is moving from a life of hurting myself and others to a life of not hurting myself and others. That seems so simple–except when we substitute for real practice some idea that we should be different or better than we are, or that our lives should be different from the way they are. When we substitute our ideas about what should be (such notions as “I should not be angry or confused or unwilling”) for our life as it truly is, then we’re off base and our practice is barren.

– Charlotte Joko Beck, in Everyday Zen
from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

Daily Dharma

Stream of Thoughts

We tend to be particularly unaware that we are thinking virtually all the time. The incessant stream of thoughts flowing through our minds leaves us very little respite for inner quiet. And we leave precious little room for ourselves anyway just to be, without having to run around doing things all the time. Our actions are all too frequently driven rather than undertaken in awareness, driven by those perfectly ordinary thoughts and impulses that run through the mind like a coursing river, if not a waterfall. We get caught up in the torrent and it winds up submerging our lives as it carries us to places we may not wish to go and may not even realize we are headed for.

Meditation means learning how to get out of this current, sit by its bank and listen to it, learn from it, and then use its energies to guide us rather than to tyrannize us. This process doesn’t magically happen by itself. It takes energy. We call the effort to cultivate our ability to be in the present moment “practice” or “meditation practice.”

– Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are

From Everyday Mind, a Tricycle book edited by Jean Smith

The “incessant stream of thoughts” does indeed drive my actions now. Since my thoughts tend to not only race but diverge onto multiple paths my actions tend to be few (the thoughts overwhelm me into inaction it often seems) and they tend to be uninformed by reality. In other words. I tend to say and sometimes do things that are not based on what is actually happening in my world. An example would by my misinterpretation of what someone has said to me so that I react in a defensive or aggressive manner. If I had either not given my interpretation of whatever the person had said any credence without checking to see if that is what they really meant, the resulting reaction from that person would not be so angry and confused.

My practice now consists of random moments of following my breath, reading books on Zen or related matter and the care of plants. These are good but not substitutes for a daily zazen routine. I want to go to my old pattern of two 30 minute sittings a day plus study and work practice (mindfulness in my actions).