Sitting Myself Into A Corner

The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude. - Aldous Huxley in the Zen Calendar (March 17, 2007).

Day 289. So here I am: disciplined and epitomizing time management as I stay late at work to post the blog in a timely manner. My (studying to be an accountant) offspring's solution to the dinosaur death was, "Go to Best Buy and charge a laptop." Easy for you to say, Ye with a mother who still pays Your bills. (Incidentally, the bills that are accruing subsequent to your decision to leave the university at which you had an ENTIRELY free ride). I digress . . . the Preferred Version of Reality in which my son attends college for FREE was replaced by The Big R many months ago.

Since my purge of boldfaced honesty on "Slacker Sitter," I have mysteriously approached my practice with renewed vigor. One would think the frequency with which I encourage my clients to practice Radical Acceptance (of their feeling states), would cause me to grasp the usefulness of the concept in my own life. I would highly recommend the (appropriately expressed) practice of Calling Spades "Spades" (in this case, calling slacking "slacking.") It is highly cleansing and inspiring. Like using a brand new eraser on a dry erase board -- you just sweep it across the surface and the sheen returns to the shiny blank surface. There is nothing like a flagrant foray into impiety to oust the choking sensation resulting from excessive dutifulness.

During zazen two nights ago, I had an interesting experience emanating from the metaphor of "painting yourself into a corner." I had a vision of the classic cartoon scenario in which a character, innocent and oblivious in the diligence with which she concentrates on her task, literally coats a vast room with flawlessly applied fresh paint, only to look up and discover, alas! that she has stranded herself in a tiny corner. She is left with two options: Waiting for the paint to dry so that her hard work is not for naught, or traisping across her still wet labor and necessitating an arduous repair job.

As I meditated on the metaphor (sometimes the proverbial Emptiness is simply not attainable), the imagery underwent a startling twist: the unpainted space in the corner became vast, and the painted area shrank to a tiny fraction of the whole, immense area. I had the distinct impression that my zazen practice is, metaphorically, enlarging the clean, white space of me, while it simultanesouly shrinks the "painted" areas. I drew calm breaths, deepening my state of meditation.

There is a kind of philosophical clarity that appears exclusively in my meditative states. This kind of insight is impossible to access unless I devote practice time to clearing away the day-to-day debris that litters my consciousness. A thought frgament from a recent blog in which I acknowledged that the longer I sit, the less I have to say in the blog floated to my awareness. When I embedded the thought fragment into my "painting into a corner" metaphor, a light bulb exploded within. The more I practice, the more the "white space" of my Self and my life expands. The unadulterated, perfect essence (i.e. the One Great Love) from which I originate is magnified and enlarged. The painted floor seems to symbolize the diminishing proportion of me that is occupied by effort and ego and attachment. An inevitable evolution towards increased sitting and decreased blogging unfolds. Practice transcends words. Experience trumps description. Living supplants recording.

I adore the concept of reframing. I use it all the time in my psychological practice. A few days ago, I struggled with feelings of negativity and concern for my increasing tendency to "isolate." Today, I am framing it differently. Perhaps my mind is growing more powerful and original. If so, I credit my sitting practice. If that is the reason I am inclining towards the religion of solitude, I am okay with that. And if empty, clear space is backing me into a corner in which there is no room for ego and attachment, I am much more than okay with it. I am ecstatic.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc