I usually find meditation more difficult when I have more time to myself. A routine, apparently is crucial- if I know I have only that 30 minutes to sit, it is then or never. But perhaps this isn't the case at all. Perhaps, just perhaps, I am just impossible.
There is a "map" to deepening one's practice in Zen, one's teacher and tradition. In Shim Gum Do, the map is seemingly straight forward. Learn the sword or karate forms, observe your mind (your mood, concentration, resistance, fear, judgment) while doing them, and bring those observations into everyday life. While doing the dishes, pay attention, know when you are thinking elsewhere, and come back to the dishes. Everyday practice. This is what distinguishes Chinese from Indian Buddhism, and was what Dogen brought back with him to Japan.
Sitting zazen is important to me. But, I fear, I am no good at it. I can sit for extended periods- especially on retreat- but my mind scrambles all over the cage it has made for itself. Rarely do I get up from my morning practice and think, "that was pretty good". But the judgment on one's practice is one of the layers to peel back. Who is judging, why the need to judge? Am I hedging? Am I really doing what I think I am doing? When I am with my children, am I fully with them?
Yet there are echoes throughout my day that something has shifted. Sitting with noticably better focus in the morning has no relationship to my state of mind for the rest of the day. I have observed that my mood, effectiveness, gentleness, insight over the course of a day have no apparent relationship to how focused my morning practice was. If I wanted a "good" day, sitting every morning is not the way to get one.
What has changed is that my ability to concentrate has improved. The last time that happened was while training intensively for my second black belt in sword. I am also somewhat less affected by other people's moods, more so than can be explained by the long journey from 43 to 43 and a half.
It is not often a sports commentator makes much sense to me. I even dreamt last night of a particularly inane exchange between a sports writer and a ball player: boring question, vague and predictable answer. But during a rain delay last night one commentator was talking about his playing time in the majors, and how the best coaches were usually players who weren't Major League sucesses. Why? They struggled consciously, nothing came easy. They had to analyze their game, and everyone else's, in order to find a fingerhold to keep them in the big leagues. A brilliant athlete is often so intuitive, and certain elements of the game so easy for so long, that he or she can't explain it. How do you throw such an effective slider? Well, I just kind of zing it in there. Thanks, man. That'll help me keep my job.
The struggle is the practice. We don't sit to get something, we sit to sit. It is a workshop. It reminds me a bit of, well, Practice...play your instrument, learn your lines and stage directions, comb through the data systematically, mix your paints, then do what you do without a trace of self-consciousness. Do your practice, and then take it out into the world.
There is a "map" to deepening one's practice in Zen, one's teacher and tradition. In Shim Gum Do, the map is seemingly straight forward. Learn the sword or karate forms, observe your mind (your mood, concentration, resistance, fear, judgment) while doing them, and bring those observations into everyday life. While doing the dishes, pay attention, know when you are thinking elsewhere, and come back to the dishes. Everyday practice. This is what distinguishes Chinese from Indian Buddhism, and was what Dogen brought back with him to Japan.
Sitting zazen is important to me. But, I fear, I am no good at it. I can sit for extended periods- especially on retreat- but my mind scrambles all over the cage it has made for itself. Rarely do I get up from my morning practice and think, "that was pretty good". But the judgment on one's practice is one of the layers to peel back. Who is judging, why the need to judge? Am I hedging? Am I really doing what I think I am doing? When I am with my children, am I fully with them?
Yet there are echoes throughout my day that something has shifted. Sitting with noticably better focus in the morning has no relationship to my state of mind for the rest of the day. I have observed that my mood, effectiveness, gentleness, insight over the course of a day have no apparent relationship to how focused my morning practice was. If I wanted a "good" day, sitting every morning is not the way to get one.
What has changed is that my ability to concentrate has improved. The last time that happened was while training intensively for my second black belt in sword. I am also somewhat less affected by other people's moods, more so than can be explained by the long journey from 43 to 43 and a half.
It is not often a sports commentator makes much sense to me. I even dreamt last night of a particularly inane exchange between a sports writer and a ball player: boring question, vague and predictable answer. But during a rain delay last night one commentator was talking about his playing time in the majors, and how the best coaches were usually players who weren't Major League sucesses. Why? They struggled consciously, nothing came easy. They had to analyze their game, and everyone else's, in order to find a fingerhold to keep them in the big leagues. A brilliant athlete is often so intuitive, and certain elements of the game so easy for so long, that he or she can't explain it. How do you throw such an effective slider? Well, I just kind of zing it in there. Thanks, man. That'll help me keep my job.
The struggle is the practice. We don't sit to get something, we sit to sit. It is a workshop. It reminds me a bit of, well, Practice...play your instrument, learn your lines and stage directions, comb through the data systematically, mix your paints, then do what you do without a trace of self-consciousness. Do your practice, and then take it out into the world.
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