Ground Orientation

I was getting a dim comprehension of the difference between Hallie and me. It wasn't a matter of courage or dreams, but something a whole lot simpler. A pilot would call it ground orientation. I'd spent a long time circling above the clouds, looking for life, while Hallie was living it. - Barbara Kingsolver in "Animal Dreams."

Day 216. Keeping commitments is hard. The Monkeys can evoke such compelling arguments to "skip it," no matter what "it" is: the blog, or sitting, or compromising with a partner, or fulfilling a parental obligation, or showing up to whatever it is I said I would show up for. Planning and executing are such distinctly different phenomena. Planning to compose a blog every single day for a year was tantalizing, seductive, and stimulating. Actually writing it can be burdensome and arduous. I would never be able to honor the blog commitment if I hadn't paired it with sitting meditation. Everything I experience on the cushion is generalizable to my writing. Especially the part where I abandon ego and surrender to the process. Like zazen, writing flows best from the knowledge that there is nothing to attain.

Practice is begetting more practice. At emotive junctures of my life, I sense an increasing instinct to spend more time on the cushion. It doesn't feel like avoidance; on the contrary, the urge to sit seems to be the opposite of an evasive maneuver. I want to be centered instead of frenetic. Mindful, not reflexive. In the objective moment, rather than compulsively repeating past scenarios. I'm developing a growing awareness of why zazen practice evolves over years, decades, centuries (except for those lucky anomalies who are magically enlightened as they watch a moth land on a bottle cap or some other such nonsense.) My cerebral patterns and the behaviors they evoke seem pathologically entrenched. Apparently it is going to take an extraordinarily long time for me to alter my automatic thought processes and the premature conclusions they inform. Google "creature of habit" and my picture will probably pop up.

Presently, whether I like it or not, I am more identified with Codi (the narrator in "Animal Dreams") than her sister Hallie. I tend to circle above the clouds, analyzing and observing and interpreting. These are good characteristics when I am plying my trade. Less so at the jumping off points of my life. It is fascinating to watch the relationship between time on the cushion and coming down out of the clouds. Paradoxically, sitting seems to facilitate the capacity to jump off the cushion and participate more fully in my life. Like Hallie.

Strangely, the jumping off junctions have changed coordinates. Earlier this year, I had obsessive and impulsive ideas about how I would implement my practice: exotic travel, mysterious new love object, spectacular service feats, risks and accomplishments that readily lend themselves to movie scripts. Everything is changing. Now I want to implement my practice through deepening my practice. My ideas (though probably still obsessive and impulsive) center around resuming attendance at my teacher Frank's sangha, volunteering next spring and summer at Tassahara, the Zen Mountain Center established by Suzuki Roshi, attending day long seminars and longer meditation retreats, devoting more of my reading time to Zen and Buddhist teaching. And sitting: sitting, Sitting, SITTING.

Many people wouldn't consider additional cushion time as participating more fully in life. Six months ago, neither would I. Yet another surprise proffered by this odd year upon which I have embarked! Practice begets practice. And practice begets life. The living of it, that is.

Gassho,
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