Cushion Chagrin

Remember thou must go alone; the Buddhas only point the way. - The Buddha in the Zen Calendar (February 13, 2002).

Day 205. Sometimes I love to blog. Sometimes I love to sit. A few times I love to blog and sit. Tonight I love neither. I don't even like them a little bit.

I was miserable while meditating last night. Not maturely, bravely, insightfully miserable. It was more like crappy, inpatient, infantile misery. I couldn't summon an iota of the naive optimism that my Beginner's Mind usually produces. Couldn't tap in to a speck of humor, perspective, emptiness, or non-attachment. Nary a crumb of compassion or kindness. Mounds of frustration, negativity and suffering accumulated on my cushion like garbage at the curb during a trash collectors' strike. My legs went beyond cramped, beyond tingling, beyond numb; the sensations shot right past discomfort and fixated on intolerable pain. I straightened one leg out to the side to reduce the severity of the pain, and was promptly consumed with loathing at my weakness. Sheesh. Have I learned nothing in the past 204 days?

Since February Third, it was the closest I have come to abandoning a zazen session in sheer disgust. I would like to report that I stuck it out because of commitment and integrity and strong moral character, or some other such horse poo. Alas, those admirable traits had no bearing whatsoever on sticking out the 40 minutes. Honestly, I was unwilling to face the self-recrimination that I would have unleashed on myself had I foreclosed on a sit. Nothing more. The disappointment would have been unbearable. Guess this means I am All In. Or a complete coward. Probably some of both.

Sometimes it seems like an unfathomably bizarre thing to have thrown down the gauntlet of this endeavor. When I analyze last night's zazen, I become entangled in a labyrinth of agitated Zenisms. My thoughts swirl, previously contemplated concepts ring hollow and nonsensical in my ears, comfort and compassion orbit outside my grasp. It is like betrayal by a best friend: my most reliable source of reassurance and stability quizzically morphed into the agent of my distress. I am flattened and demoralized.

The blog is failing me as well. For the moment, the desertion is complete. I am forlorn and befuddled. What is my recourse? Hair of the dog; thread of the cushion. I will return to the source of my misery. And I will sit on it.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc