Thoughts and Non-Thoughts

I owe everything in my life to Ann and my two terrific children - Devin and Jack.  Let's face it - the only reason I wrote this book is because both of them wanna go to college.  So thanks for helping to further their education by purchasing this fine piece of literature.  Wow.  I wrote a whole book.  Well, it's SHAPED like a book.  Anyways - enjoy. - Denis Leary in "Why We Suck."

Day 355.  Peak Experience!  PEAK Experience!  I am now the proud (pleased?  I am trying to keep my ego out of it) owner of an Amazon Kindle.  I received it today as an early birthday present.  Ego wrestling aside, I am feeling a bit smug at my technological savvy.  I had the little marvel unpacked, charged, registered, nicknamed, and mastered the Quick Start concepts within the space of an hour -- all without a single second of outside consultation.  Even The Sophomore will be impressed (Correction:  Said Sophomore recently informed me he now has sufficient collegiate hours to qualify as a Junior.  That's going to take some getting used to).

In the first 30 seconds following registration, I promptly went to the Kindle Store and ordered Denis Leary's book as my first Kindle conquest.  It had been on my que for several months.  As I read the first couple of pages, I was struck by his casual, conversational writing style.  It gave me pause as I reflected upon the rather formal, fairly tyrannical "committee" that has resided in my brain since I began the blog.  I tend to write as though my doctoral committee still gets a vote.  Obviously, one can languish in infinite sentence fragments and grammatically incorrect expression and still be a published author.  Duly noted. I shall agonize less in future writing projects.   Bet l will bring my next piece of writing to fruition in a far shorter span of time.

As the sit/blog year draws to a close, it is interesting to watch my thoughts about the blog and zazen.  In some ways, Blog Thoughts do not reflect my zazen practice whatsoever.  I start spinning maniacally about what is left to say, as though there is still a chance I will write The Big One in this last week.  Maybe.  Probably not.  And who cares, anyway?  What, exactly, would writing The Big One entail?  My thoughts and ideas about the blog keep gravitating toward embarrassingly Western, ego-driven, attached, cerebral, intellectual, analytical themes.  I reflect upon the blog content with an evaluative, critical mindset that is antithetical to what I have learned about Zen.   Enter the Monkeys, with their incessant  prattle:  "Check the stats!  Who is reading this!?  Why haven't there been more comments?  You didn't generate much discussion!  You haven't been available to your readers! You forgot to tell the story of building the shed with your dad!  You weren't funny (smart, clever, witty, informed, provocative, interesting, stimulating . . .) enough!  You could have written more about psychology!  Where's your agent?  Book deal?  Movie contract?  Rename the blog!  Advertise it!  Spruce it up!  Color!  Pictures!  Video!  Sound!  Bigger, Faster, Louder . . . . . MORE!

Bite me, Monkeys!  I can perform a few bows, chant the Heart Sutra (in English AND Japanese!), form a mudra, and squelch you all like bugs (although, Good Buddhist that I am, I would never REALLY squelch you).  Point is, I can silence you - at least to a much greater extent than 51 weeks ago.  Because whirling around the Blog Thoughts as they caper through Big Mind, there are also endless Zen Thoughts.  And Non-Thoughts.  And quiet, empty Breaths.  A certainty that I will continue to sit zazen long after I strike my last letter on a keyboard.  A beginning to something powerful and lasting.  A foundation upon which I will build my eternal sitting practice.

Thoughts come and go about that, too, but there isn't much the Monkeys can wrap their opposing thumbs around.   Because when my consciousness rests upon my practice, there is an absolute absence of evaluation, urgency or attachment.  Instead, I sense a formless, timeless vastness that stretches beyond comprehension.  Yet somehow I grasp it.  If only fleetingly, I have entered the vastness and it feels like Home.  I found the gate.  And sometimes I even walk through it.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc