Off With Their Heads!

No thought, no reflection, no analysis,
no cultivation, no intention;
Let it settle itself. - Tilopa in the Zen Calendar (December 8, 2007).

Day 230. I am grappling with the ongoing dilemma of maintaining the original parameters I established for my blog. The parameters focusing on blogging about my zazen experience. The temptation to use the white space on my computer screen as a general life chronicle and emotive dumping group is compelling and seductive. Especially when there is a lot to dump.

I walked away from the screen for a while, came back and read the opening paragraph, and, despite the laps I am currently swimming in the Despondence-Sea, smiled the tiniest Buddha smile. Dilemma resolved. There ARE no parameters in writing about my experience with zazen. Zazen permeates every cell, every atom, every molecule of my being. It is becoming the foundation from which my life germinates. Whew. That's a relief. I can write about anything on here. Anything at all. This reminder certainly puts the "Big" back in Big Mind. Room for everything.

Ruby was not in a fight with another animal. The vet is certain that she was hit by a car. The dogs' usual care provider wasn't able to watch them this weekend, so they were watched by a neighbor. When I didn't come home Friday night, I suspect she went out looking for me. That's who Ruby is. My protector. Obviously, the driver of the car didn't stop and read her tag or offer assistance. Somehow Ruby made it back home and waited for my return. And waited. Tried to nurse her wounds on her own. The vet said one of the injuries is quite serious. She operated today and we will have to wait and see if blood flow will return to that leg. My attachment to Ruby is profound. I have great difficulty understanding why loving, caring, implicitly good and loyal beings have to suffer so deeply. Oh yeah. I don't have to understand this. Just accept it. And be there for Ruby.

I struggle with degrees of disclosure on the blog. Odd, because sometimes accurately describing what has occurred on the cushion entails revealing intimate and vulnerable experiences. I am in my element if honest disclosure is wrapped in layers of polysyllabic words, abstract intellectualizing, and academic distance. My comfort zone becomes even more plush if I sprinkle in a dusting of impressive moral aspiration and imparting gratifying lessons through provocative metaphors and engaging anecdotes. It all goes to crap when genuine expression obligates me to say a version of, "I suck." Revealing personal frailty is definitely not my forte. In fact, as capabilities go, admitting I am human is right up there on the list with applying eye liner. I suck at both.

So here goes: I am leveled by Ruby's pain. Sad and frightened and distracted and furious (at myself, the neighbor with whom I entrusted Ruby's care, the car driver, the universe). I want to withdraw from life, shirk all obligation, and crawl into her crate at the animal hospital and whisper nurturing sounds, stroking her until she can frolic at the lake again. I don't want to learn from this or grow from it or blabber inspirational nonsense about how zen helped me cope. I don't want to accept it, and I sure as hell don't feel like relinquishing my attachment to the idea of her full recovery. I don't feel empty and centered; on the contrary, I feel an overflowing consumption of grief and hopelessness.

I am sick of caring for injured beings. I am resentful that the universe, with some perversely sick sense of humor and irony, repeatedly doles out this role for me and simultaneously has rendered me so ill equipped to respond. I am not naturally nurturing. My reaction when faced with physical infirmity - in myself and others - is to say, "Get over it!" Interesting, because I have infinite patience with psychological woundedness.

I haven't previously told the story of when me and my friend Ginny were forced by our kindergarten teacher to spend some time playing in the "house" area of the classroom during free time because, when left to our own preferences, we always chose blocks or trucks. We retaliated by promptly decapitating all of the baby dolls, resulting in a cacophony of wailing from the gender appropriate five-year-old females (their requisite time in therapy was surpassed only by the eternity I spent on the couch resolving the origins of my decision, at the innocent age of five, to behead the very dolls with which my peers were so tenderly playing mommy). Clearly, my lack of maternal proclivity dates far back indeed.

So there we have it. Honest disclosure of some current truths. With due respect for the decade spent with my analyst, I am going to approach these painful feelings differently. No analyzing. No processing. Precious little vocalizing. I feel no imperative to make sense of this nonsensical thing that has happened. I don't know yet if some form of resolution will appear on the blog. Ruby got hurt and I feel like crap. Pretty straightforward. Like sitting on a cushion and breathing. I don't need to make it more complicated than it is.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc