Somber Sitting

Sit just to sit. And why not sit? You have to sit sometimes, and so you may as well really sit, and be altogether here. Otherwise the mind wanders away from the matter at hand, and away from the present. Even to think through the implications of the the present is to avoid the present moment completely. - Alan Watts in the Zen Calendar (June 27, 2007)

Day 57. I am very tired of the wind. I've noticed that the wind doesn't seem to care a bit. Evidently, I don't get a vote about how hard it blows.

I woke up today anxious and exhausted from a restless night fraught with disturbing dreams. I could not seem to shake the anxiety for most of the day. Frustrating, especially since I am supposedly a competent psychologist who knows a great deal about treating anxiety. Doctor: heal thyself! Anxiety is a mischievous beast. It doesn't seem to give a damn about whether or not I can produce a rational reason for its existence. Like everything else, it just IS.

This feeling state may be a remnant from some most unsatisfying cushion time as of late. I incontrovertibly agree with Alan Watts' quote, however, lately I am struggling with really sitting. I can't dwell in the moment. I can't mute the Monkeys. I am attempting to approach my meditation in earnest, noticing an internal scrutiny of my protocol like that of a newly promoted drill sergeant. Yet I've been a lousy sitter for several nights in a row.

A pox on the promise to be honest in my blog! But promise I did, so I am writing about two recent examples of how poorly zazen is going. A few nights ago, I had been sitting in a reasonably calm and quiet manner when I abruptly became acutely aware of the time. It felt like twenty minutes had already passed. I told myself that I would count ten more breaths. On about the third one, the timer blinked and I popped up off my cushion like a Toaster Strudel. No set of three side bows. No reverent and deep bow forward. No brushing off the imaginary dirt from the cushion. No gentle lifting of my cushions to store them on the chest. You would have thought the blinking timer was the zero digit on a bomb fuse. As I turned from mindlessly plunking my cushions down on the storage chest, I was overcome with a deep sense of mortification. What happened? Where was my mind? It hadn't fallen away, at least not in the pure and dignified Buddhist sense. It had fast forwarded to my profound attachment to getting some sleep.

Trying not to look over my shoulder as though a hidden camera had recorded my atrocities, I humbly placed my cushions back on the floor. Sat down, and slowly, deliberately, performed the ritual signifying the end of zazen. The corrective action did little to assuage my discomfiture. I told myself not be be attached to compulsively performing my sitting ritual. It felt like excuses and cheating. I was taught long and well about the value of mindfully approaching meditation.

On the heels of this anarchy, I approached zazen with a heightened degree of seriousness. I strongly, sternly, grounded myself on my cushion for some somber sitting. Several deep breaths passed through a perfectly held mudra. Then I heard something right behind me calmly licking its chops. At first I thought it was Reality. Reflexively I turned and saw it was Katy (the border collie), come to round up an errant member of her flock. In an inpatient voice, I said, "Katy, quit licking!" I was aghast. I had done it again. Interrupted zazen with a random and unnecessary impulse. Katy and I both tucked our tails; she returned to her kennel, I to my sitting.

During the time I sat with the sangha at my teacher's house, we were extremely formal. He emphasized the style of zazen he learned from Suzuki Roshi at the San Francisco Zen Center. It was a very ancient, traditional, precise form of meditation. I adored and revered it. I could sit motionless for forty minutes, making the guards at Buckingham Palace look hyperactive. I could abstain from scratching the most persistent of itches. My spine and knees could wail in agony, and I held my position. I don't recall feeling attached to perfection. I respected my teacher and was deeply invested in communicating that sentiment through flawless sitting.

These thoughts and experiences are jumbled in my heart. I know the thing to do is get my butt on my cushion. Somehow it seems timely that, beginning tomorrow, I'm going to sit for just a little bit longer.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc