The Sea of Life

Life is like stepping onto a boat that is about to sail out to sea and sink. - Shunryu Suzuki in the Zen Calendar (Septembre 5, 2002).

Day 159. I rode 30 miles alone today. I am aghast and dumbfounded at how terrible I feel physically. My legs felt like someone stuck a straw in my thighs, sucked out all the bone marrow, and poured in molten steel. Most of the ride reminded me of those interminable minutes at the end of zazen. Those hell minutes of meditation are teaching me something though. Lessons applicable to the bike. On every incline, through every diabolical headwind and crosswind, as the sweat poured down until my socks were squishy, I just kept the cranks turning. I didn't have thought about it one way or another. The essential thing was to pedal. Everything else got relegated to nonessential. Makes me feel a bit invincible.

I always thought the Nike slogan "Just Do It" was way over simplified and disrespectful of the mysterious unconscious dynamics underlying our choices and behavior. Now I'm not so sure. I guess my unconscious disappeared right around the time I mastered emptiness and nothingness. Reality doesn't appear to give a flying flip about my unconscious. Great. Yet another tectonic plate shift in the infrastructure of my being.

At some point in the past 158 days zazen became permanent in my life. The Monkeys still chatter, my back, knees, ankles and wrists alternate bouts of numbness, the cushion sags, a thousand distracting things clamor for my attention, I am a social outcast because, like Cinderella, I prematurely halt all evening activity to allow for sitting and blogging - and still I sit. I am cringing while I write this, but I Just Do It. It is amazing what one can accomplish once the distinction between real and unreal becomes apparent. The trick lies in not mistaking all that roaring hubbub between one's ears as real, much less relevant.

Tonight's quote floated to the surface of my pile in the perfectly serendipitous way that meaning has of seeping into my existence. I probably wouldn't step onto a boat it I knew ahead of time that it was destined to sink into the depths of the sea. Yet here I am, tucked into the hull of my sitting practice, sailing breezily upon the sea of enlightenment. Like most novice sailors, I've underestimated the treacherousness of my crossing. My life, my love, my cycling, my future, my dreams, priorities and goals, my perception -- all are churning like flotsam in a tsunami. Zazen is my only anchor. More than I bargained for. Much, much more.

The bizarre thing is that, most of the time, the dramatic flux is accompanied by miraculously little emotion. I feel detached; serene, calm and content. Paradoxically, memory murmurs of painful and significant life events are stirring. My hunch is that, in the service of healing, I am revisiting important touchstones in my life from this emerging perspective and wisdom. Like a second chance to sort through them - this time with clarity and compassion rather than terror and shame. Sounds like a lot of work. Makes me wonder about the thousands of dollars I spent on analysis. Especially since sitting is free.

Natalie Goldberg tells me to write with "original thought" about very specific experiences. This terrifies me. It is so natural to escape into glittering generalities. There is nothing glittery about growing up in an alcoholic home, embarking upon a series of bad choices in men that rivals M*A*S*H in longevity, and raising my son - the one with a proclivity for ICU stays - alone. Yet another zazen-induced paradox: it feels necessary to revisit my past in order to be able to dwell fully in the present. Must I make everything so difficult? I'm a shrink; it's what we do.

Let me get this straight. I've sailed out to sea only to sink into its depths. Puzzling. But I'm damned curious to see what lies on the ocean floor.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc