Perfectly Half Way

How wonderful!
How wonderful!
All things are perfect
Exactly as they are! - The Buddha in the Zen Calendar (a page on my refrigerator that is at least five years old).

Day 182. Happy Half Birthday to Me!! Halfway through this blog I will be halfway through my journey (365 divided by 2 = 182.5)! I've thought about this day quite a bit. Figured I would write something profound and inspirational and milestone-esque. Instead, I got nothing!

Tonight I will begin sitting for a full 40 minutes. This is significant to me, because it is the length of time I sat with my teacher. I don't know why we sat for that long any more than I know why my psychotherapy sessions last 50 minutes. It's just how we do it.

I had imagined I would look back over the past six months and assess, reflect, and wax philosophical. Not feelin' it tonight. I've never been good at genuinely feeling the emotions that are expected on any given occasion. It's made for some mundane birthdays and holidays. More accurately, it's made for some durn rotten holidays. My peak experiences and genuine joy tend to occur arbitrarily and most often when I least expect them. While growing up, I spent so much time in the presence of the Poster Family for Co-Dependency, where no authentic and spontaneous emotion was allowed, I became quite inept at recognizing, much less labeling and expressing, true feelings.

(I interrupt this blog to bring you this important announcement: I am now PRECISELY HALFWAY THROUGH - 182.5 - MY 365 DAYS OF BLOGGING! GASSHO GASSHO GASSHO!)

Enter years of analysis followed by zazen. Ta-da! Authenticity mastered - better late than never! I am no longer willing to expend energy on portraying emotions I'm not truly experiencing. This frees up a vibrant depth and breadth of passion for the times when my feelings are real. Joy cannot be forced, or faked, or feigned. For that matter, neither can anguish. There are no words to describe how liberating it is to come into alignment with Reality. The energy conserved is astounding. I take my surplus psychic energy to my cushion, where it is quietly discharged into the cosmos, hopefully in the service of good karma. Perhaps in the service of nothing at all. Maybe it just quietly dissipates into the void.

Speaking of authenticity, a bolt of genuine certainty just resounded through me. During the second half of my CycleBuddhaDoc endeavor, I will blog less and sit more. Shorter blogs and longer sits. I feel it in my marrow, and just behind my mudra. The energy circumnavigating my egocentric fantasy of a book deal, mobs of followers, and the movie script HAS vaporized into the void. I don't even know when it vanished. I didn't even see it go. I don't even miss it.

Fascinating: I had no idea what I would write tonight, particularly since I was beleaguered by the pressure of my halfway point. Then, just like that! Keystrokes hammered beneath my fingertips with another reminder of the gifts of my practice: the ability to feel and express genuine emotion and the capacity to exist in Reality exactly as it unfolds. How Wonderful! All things ARE perfect, exactly as they are!

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc