zenjones

Yesterday, Christmas day, I was completely preoccupied with dread of this sesshin. I could not be present in the way I thought I should be, so I had to be present in the only way possible: with what was. I castigated myself, I judged myself and my husband, I tried to find reasons to become angry, I read obsessisively, I planned and fretted. There was a moment, in the evening, as my husband and I sat on the couch and listened to Maya Angelou read “Amazing Peace,” a Christmas poem. For a moment I realized that this was it, this was peace. 

This morning I am entering into sesshin, even though I haven’t left the house. I am noticing my nervousness. I am being very careful with my preparations—with blow-drying my hair, shaving my legs. Tomorrow I will wake after a night on the floor with no shower in sight, my hair stuck in silly mode, intent only on being present. But today I cling to my identity out here, and to the fact that I can slip back into that identity in a week.

So I will struggle not to have expectations, and all the other million and one struggles that are practice.