Day 286. I feel as though I've invented a whole new medium of promiscuity: four different keyboards in as many days. And that isn't the whole of it: I've also been writing - prepare yourselves . . . with a PEN! Blasphemy! I am wary of whatever obscure form of reprimand may be issued by the blogging police for such felonious behavior. I am, literally, losing sleep over a failure to transcribe my hand written blogs for the past two days. The segment of my Preferred Version of Reality in which I have plenty of time and access to a computer (without evoking PTSD flashbacks from being alone in large, dark buildings in the middle of the night) has not yet come into alignment with the Big R. In the meantime, I have tried Thought Broadcasting as a way of getting my blogs to post. So far, no luck. Thus, I will continue to administer aid to the dinosaur whilst simultaneously finding creative ways to bum computer time.
The logistics of the blog have usurped substantive content. Meanwhile, internal shifts of tectonic proportion are occurring. It is dawning on me that my immersion in adhering to my blog/sit commitment over the past nine months has resulted in radical, unanticipated consequences. In the midst of my exploration of non-attachment, an insidious and far-reaching attachment to completing the endeavor as I originally set it up is costing me dearly. Outside the realm of my conscious awareness, I have gradually disappeared into a rather narcissistic absorption with my "project." In the midst of my "sincere intent" to sit zazen and write about it, I have most unintentionally neglected vital elements of my life. I lobbed them off. "Big Mind" as a conceptual and academic construct is one thing; becoming so consumed with practicing Big Mind that I crowd out the entirety of what the construct is supposed to hold in the first place is something else altogether.
I am trying to say that my focus on "living Zen" has encapsulated me in the exact mind space of thinking, analyzing, and evaluating that comprises the antithesis of truly practicing Zen. How the heck did that happen? I blame the blog (said sarcastically, and also with utter sincerity). I think I became self-conscious right around the time it occurred to me that someone was actually reading this stuff. It has been extraordinarily difficult to refrain from an ego investment in the blog, which in turn has inhibited my writing. The extent of this paradox is revealing itself as I type: in the truest sense of the practice of sitting zazen, the more I sit, the less I have to write. I have felt that at the fringes of my awareness; I've just never been able to express it until tonight. The conundrum is entangled with my original commitment: to sit AND blog for a year. Fascinating! When I first made the commitment, I could never have foreseen the possibility that the pursuit of the two activities could eventually render them mutually exclusive. Uh, but what about non-dualism? Argh!!! I hate the moments when exploring Zen makes my head feel like I just stepped off the Whirling Teacup ride at Disney World.
Here is the quagmire in which I am presently bogged: How do I reintegrate this beloved practice of zazen back into matters that are closest to my heart? Is there room for heart in Zen? And when I say "heart," I am referencing the sloppy, sloshing, dripping, messy, irrational, nonsensical, conflictual, subjective, deeply and profoundly attachment-related matters of the heart. In the past 285 days, the concern for getting my butt on the cushion may have interfered with registering the whereabouts of other bodily parts. My heart is making a comeback. It wants room on the cushion, too.
Big Mind, undoubtedly, is spacious enough to accommodate butts and hearts. Obviously, I have a ways to go in the expansion of mine. Mind, that is.
Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc
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I've been too busy and exhausted handing out loads of dentention etc recently to be able to read this regularly and I've missed it!
ReplyDeleteI have found osmething very similar with my practice except more related to music. As my practice has deepened my taste in music has changed. Nowadays I tend to listen mainly to instrumental music. A big mixture of instrumental, but generally nothing that has lyrics. I think this is due to beginning to find words inadequate for expressing true meaning. In true old skool zen fashion, the word for mountain does not adequately express the entirety of a mountain.
But the Japanese I think have dealt with this problem really well in their minimalist artistic forms, whether patining, haiku or electronic musical experimentations.
I also find that I can read too much about zen and get fed up with reading because its more about practice than theory. There's no point reading about other people's experiences of zen if you are not going to keep up the practice.
Gassho