Wad It All Up

The whole scene looked like something she'd like to wad up and throw away. - Barbara Kingsolver in "Prodigal Summer."

Day 181. I have plenty to say about the heat. It is wretched. It is ghastly, appalling and horrific. It makes my relationship with the Wind last March seem like a match made in heaven. Someone has hit a giant Pause button on the screenplay of my life. If it cools off, I'm hoping something hits "Play" so the action can resume. Until then, I'll blog and sit through it, but it's not going to be pretty.

For someone six months into practicing non-attachment, I can sure churn up a foaming batch of the Big A over certain things. For example, flagrant ethical violations on the part of professors at my son's very expensive college. Rationally, I recognize that bad behavior, in any context, is bad behavior. Somehow, though, raw breaches of professionalism cut deeper when I am paying large sums of money than when they occur at a public institution that was absorbing the entire cost of his education. It reminds me of when I get judgmental about judgmental people. Clearly, I remain on the lower rungs of the ladder to enlightenment. I struggle with applying my principles equally across all scenarios.

I want to be detached, but all this sitting and blogging infuses me with an inconvenient sense of accountability. Primarily to myself. Corny as it sounds, I want to Walk the Walk, not just Talk the Talk. Talking and writing are a gazillion times easier than action. Applying loving kindness to people and situations that agree with me and treat me well is like coasting downhill with a tailwind. Doesn't require much effort. Practicing compassion in circumstances that infuriate me and run counter to my core values is another thing entirely. Sometimes - most times - I just wish everyone would shape up and act right. Naturally, "right" means in accordance with what I prefer!

What did I expect? Did I truly think the bliss of my creative and ambitious project would last for an entire year? Well, it hasn't. Sometimes it is a real pain in the butt to get my butt on my cushion. I realize that less than 24 hours ago I wrote, on this very computer, some driveling nonsense about how automatic it has become to engage in meditation time. It was true yesterday. Yesterday it didn't reach 108 degrees. Today nothing seems easy; everything bites; I can't blink without sweating; six more months of blogging and sitting seems like infinity and beyond. I'd like to wad up the whole scene and throw it away.

But I won't. One of the most spectacular things about Zen Buddhism is the totality of experience encompassed by Big Mind. There is room for everything. Misery is predicted, expected, and allowed. You don't have to sugar coat it, lie about it, deny it, fend it off, or dress it up to look like something pretty. Crap packaged in shiny paper and colorful ribbon is still crap. In Buddhism, crap gets to be crap. It's a beautiful thing, and takes SO MUCH less energy. Reality is an enormous space indeed.

There are moments - sometimes very long ones - when the temperature soars and highly paid professors don't even hold class while their undergrads are expected to teach multivariate statistics to themselves. I don't have to like it. I don't have to agree with it. And I'm sure not going to stop sitting because of it.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc