zenjones

So last week we read the “Experiencing Grief” by Stephen Levine. According to Levine, we don’t grieve only when we have lost someone (if only if were that simple, he says), but more or less constantly in our daily lives through our self-doubt, our “not-enoughness.”

This is all well and good, but some people didn’t buy it. Why “grief”? they asked? Grief is over loss, not angst. Why should we regard our fears and self-judgments specifically as grief?

I’ve been thinking about this. What goes on when I’m caught in some downer belief, like “I’m a loser”? Well, that belief carries with it a sense of doom and irrevocability. It seems like a permanent state. There’s also an underlying and unacknowledged sense of blame: if only circumstances had been different, I wouldn’t be such a loser.

If only my parents had been more understanding, I would be less neurotic. If only I’d gotten my mother’s wavy hair and my father’s lean face, instead of my father’s straight hair and my mother’s round face, I would be so much better looking! If only I’d had nicer elementary school teachers instead the judgmental harridans I got. And so on.

These more favorable circumstances never came to pass, of course, so I experience them as loss, permanent, irrevocable loss, like death. That’s why “grief.”

But it’s really an almost fake grief, because it’s totally dependent on my belief in the might-have-been world, which doesn’t exist, didn’t exist, and frankly we don’t know if it could have existed, really.  What I experience and feel is real enough, but what lies underneath is illusion. Levine writes, “Examining what we feel, not analyzing why, we discover the labyrinthine patterns of our grief and unfinished business, the skeletons of so many moments of life which became lost by the wayside. And the darkness of a thousand moments of helplessness and hopelessness is illuminated in a clear and merciful awareness.” Grief, as he puts it, is workable. I can see that now.

 If only I’d had this answer ready for people last Wednesday. :  )

I was anxious going into sesshin because Ezra had told me a few days earlier that I was jisha. I don’t mind that job for our own Santa Rosa sesshin, but all I could think about was how unworthy I was to do it in San Diego, and that everyone would be judging me as not being senior enough or a good enough student to have that job and would be waiting for me to screw up.

There is a bell-ringing sequence that the jisha does with the timekeeper after a teacher gives a dharma talk, and I was all stressed-out about getting this right. Barbara (timekeeper) was coaching me in the zendo, when over her shoulder I spotted the flowers on the altar. They were a lovely, ethereal arrangement of pink Gerbera daisies floating over rose-shaped succulents in a long, shallow vase, and they looked like lotus blossoms in a pond. But there were no thoughts about the flowers. I just noticed them without realizing that I was noticing them.

Later during the dharma talk, someone made a comment that made me think (somewhat contemptuously), “Well, duh!” As I labeled the judgment and started scold myself for indulging my little self, I looked towards the altar and saw the flowers again. Then I remembered how I had seen them earlier, and I seeing them again I felt something open up. I thought about how one could be full of small self pettiness and yet still be able to take in something beautiful outside the small self. I realized that not only was the small self judging others, but that my fears of being judged by others assumed that they were coming from their small selves. The flowers triggered the momentary ability to just take something in and experience it directly, so I was able to apprehend in that moment the big self that contains the small, and that in fact, it is one big self that contains all of our small ones.

I messed up the bell-ringing after that particular dharma talk, but I got it right the next time.

When the coyotes howled I noticed a pleasant tension in all the large muscles of my body. Not as if I had to do something right then, but just telling me to be ready. I realized that that tension is often there when I am in the wilderness—but I’d never noticed it before.

Observed how I began to salivate as we pulled out our eating bowls, just a little, but my body knew the food was coming. Enjoyed the waiting, the attempt to take just enough so we could all finish together. Amused by the way I judged those who did not do this.

As jisha, had many opportunities to notice how I judged myself—and justified, and blamed, and whined about my martyrdom—and others. Though actually less about others; they were my charges. It was my job. As a manager (in business), I think in terms of “What does this person need to succeed?” and so when people came to me with needs, I clicked into work mode.

I was smug with being awareness, thought to myself, “I have the time, the space, the reminders to be aware. Look how aware I am!” And kept being brought up to face my un-presentness: not noticing that a first-time sesshin attendee didn’t know where the kitchen was—even though she was my roommate, for example.

I had real remorse for not maintaining silence. In the past, I’ve been pretty strict with myself about this, probably from a desire to be a good zen student. But as jisha, there is some functional talk necessary, especially with a sort of complicated daisan system. But sometimes I went beyond that, and I realized the disservice I was doing to others by pulling them out of their silence. Wanting to make them more comfortable, I didn’t allow them to take the most advantage of sesshin by residing in their discomfort. Wanting to make them like me, I didn’t allow myself to take advantage of residing in my fear of being disliked.

And so much gratitude for all this, for the camera exercise, for the work of all those who came, for our teachers, for the luxury of that time. For the sound of the crow’s wings as they beat across the yard.

What were your impressions of sesshin? Please leave them in the comments.

On the shuttle there were 4 sales-types who’d just come from their annual meeting. They were loud and hearty and swell-fellow-well-met. I was texting. One of them apologized for being annoying. I said they weren’t. They told me where they’d been, and asked where I was going. “Actually, I’m going to a silent zen retreat.”

At first they themselves were newly silent. Then they were so funny, making jokes, asking about sweat lodges and spa treatments. They seemed a little interested, but having fun with the concept. “What is your goal?” one of them asked.

“I don’t have one.”

Then they were completely silent.

People in my way!
I feel like shoving them – but
is it worth the view?

Yes, I’m having one of those days full of lovely practice gifts.

Perfect day to notice how I blame others. It was pretty comical, really. Something unexpected would happen, there’d be a miscommunication, I’d make a mistake, and zhoop! I’d be blaming the nearest warm body.

But today, having it be my practice period intensification, I was aware of it most of the times I did it. So I noticed that even after I noticed it, and said, Look what you are doing, I kept coming back and trying to blame someone else for the same event, the same thing I’d just caught myself doing minutes ago.

I also noticed that I want to be angry; I think I crave that juicy self-righteous sensation. It distracts me from feelings of unworthiness (as does blame). I think I’m going to make my concentration tomorrow be to notice those feelings of unworthiness. I don’t hold out a lot of hope that I will; I’m too fast on the draw of my gun of distraction.

In my meditation group we are studying the being kindness meditation in Ezra Bayda’s book, Zen Heart. Ezra is my teacher, has been my teacher for eight years. He is a very good teacher.

Before Ezra was my teacher, I lived in Boston and read daily in Joko Beck’s two books, Nothing Special and Everyday Zen. These books, especially Nothing Special, spoke to me in ways that no other had. Every statement rang true, and I felt that for the first time in my life I had found a practice that overlaid perfectly my own spiritual thoughts and beliefs. (more…)