Bedlam Blues

To take for permanent that which is only transitory is the delusion of a madman. - Kalu Rinpoche in the Zen Calendar (October 31, 2006).

"How difficult it is! My studies are like drying ten thousand pounds of flax by hanging them in the sun," said Layman P'ang. His wife overheard this outburst and said, "Easy, easy, easy. It's like touching your feet to the ground when you get out of bed." His daughter, Ling-chao, heard both outbursts and showed them the truth with her assertion: "My way is neither difficult nor easy. When I am hungry, I eat. When I am tired, I rest." - Family Zen in the Zen Calendar (July 27, 2009).

Day 298. I am blue. Blue, but not surprised. OSU lost to OU. Thousands of Pokes fans were cautiously optimistic that this might be one of those rare and precious years when we won the Bedlam game. Alas, it was not to be. I know my blues are only transitory; there will be more Bedlam games. Right up to the point where there are no more Bedlam games. In the state of Oklahoma, we've had Bedlam football games since 1904, and chances are the future holds many, many more. A few of which OSU will win; most of which we will lose. This is one aspect of Reality that many have come to accept.

I am not remotely in the mood to write a blog. I feel about as inspired as a Jamaican hair braider the day after Spring Break. Mellow, bored, and a little worn out. Writing about my experience on the cushion is beginning to feel like storing a popsicle in the pocket of my jeans. Even if I do it every day, the thing still disappears, leaving a sticky spot where I thought I had something solid. Enough analogies. I probably should write something substantive. . .

. . . I got nothing. I just reread a wonderful comment on the November 5th blog from a reader I greatly appreciate, especially because he (she? Just realized I didn't want to make a pronoun assumption, but he/she gets rather cumbersome) sits zazen, too. He had noted that he was reaching a point where he was "finding words inadequate for expressing true meaning," and said he noticed a change in the music he preferred listening to: more instrumental, no lyrics. He further commented that the Japanese seemed to deal with the problem of "too many words, too little meaning" through minimalist artistic forms expressed in painting, haiku or electronic musical experimentation. Hmmmm. I am considering becoming a minimalist blogger, though it is too late for today's post.

The longer I sit, the less there is to say. Eat when I'm hungry, rest when I'm tired. The November 5th comment ended with a wise observation: eventually, there is no point in reading about zen if you are not going to keep up your own practice. In other words, Walk the Walk, don't just Talk (or Read) the Talk. It is hard to express thoughts and feelings about "keeping up (my) own practice" as this year progresses. Reflexively, I want to write that I am proud, grateful, humbled, enriched, improved, irrevocably changed. Six months ago, I would have written those exact feeling states (and probably did). Now, the most accurate thing to say is this: I Sit.

I no longer mistake the transitory Monkey chatter that rattles through my mind each evening during zazen as a permanent distraction from "real" meditation or credible sitting. It is simply part of the process (albeit an awfully large part at times). The peaks and valleys of my emotional states less resemble the jagged ridges of the Himalayas and look more like the gently undulating landscape we rode the tandem through in east Texas. I chuckle - sometimes guffaw - when my expanding Big Mind catches how absurdly complicated I sometimes make my life. It truly wasn't meant to be difficult. Rest when I'm tired. Eat when I'm hungry. Be kind. Be impeccable in my word. Show up on time. Don't cram twenty hours worth of tasks into ten hours of time. Grasp things with a relaxed hand. Let go of things more often than grasping them. Sit zazen regularly. Keep my back straight and my mudra upright. And breathe. Always and forever, breathe.

These are certainly not the profound, earth-shattering insights I anticipated writing as I approach my 300th day of sitting. Like life, they are neither difficult, nor easy. They just are. And that is becoming increasingly all right with me.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc