zenjones

Inspired by VLR’s post yesterday. Blaming has angles. I’m a self-blamer, for instance. When I read the Blaming post I immediately wondered if I were among the “blameworthy,” even though it wasn’t really possible (or was it?).  Then last night I discovered that Billy Jack had eaten my favorite sweater. My husband’s fault – it happened on his watch. My fault – shouldn’t have left it on the bed. Dog’s fault? Anyway:

dog chewed my sweater
it’s his fault; it’s my fault; it’s
something that happened

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.

always rewinding
internal conversations
oh whoops – life’s erased

paranoia rings
true when fear unencumbered
runs rings around you

Having a thought that I’m not a very good thought-labeler. Hey! I just did it! Okay, having a thought that I’m not that bad of a thought-labeler.

It is just so interesting to me the strength of my desire to be elsewhere. Anywhere else but where I am. In the morning I look-forward to sitting. And then I set down and say my practice intention and take a breath or two and suddenly I am looking-forward to waking my husband up! How does that happen?

We have a new-ish student in our zen group. During sharing he recounts how hard he is working to be present. He sounds amazed that he can’t do it—can’t be present all the time. During sharing, we don’t have cross-talk. It is a time to talk about your own experience of practice. But it is all I can do not to say, “I’ve been doing this every day for 15 years and I am still only present for a tiny part of any day!”

I’ve been thinking about a recent talk by Ezra on refraining from expressing negative emotions vs. repressing them–a common issue for sure, but one I never felt applied to me until, like, last week, when I suddenly found myself overcome by hitherto unregistered resentment and angst. Perfect for the month ahead of intensified practice, and for my first blogging foray.

One of my “practice intensifiers” is to write a practice-related haiku each day. Another practice thing I like is controlled (or not) exposure to discomfort. This forum is perfect for combining these two things: I can post my haiku here and at the same time create the discomfort of public exposure and fear of ridicule and judgment for writing bad poetry. Isn’t the Internet great?

(piranha submerged
swims undetected) what, pray,
floats on the surface?

My expectation was that I’d be all zen-like, present, and with a little Buddha smile on. My overall practice concentration is thought-labeling, to help me be aware of my gap, which I consider to be my unwillingness to sit with fear. I revert to anger, and that has never done me any good.

I haven’t been zen-like today. I’ve been cranky and defensive and suspicious and many other un-zen behaviors. I try to be aware, but you know? Self-righteousness is a lot more fun.

Last night I explained our practice’s thoughts about fear, starting with Ezra’s great article in Tricycle, to my husband. He is not a  Zen practitioner, but he is a good listener. Certainly when I was done I felt like I had it all goin’ on. I understood how my conditioned fears transformed into thoughts and sensations which made me uncomfortable, so I got mad, and blamed him. It seemed so obvious, so easy to be aware of.

But by this morning I was all wound up again. He said some innocuous thing which I could somehow interpret as dangerous or insulting, and I reacted with anger, and sheesh.

So now I am practice with guilt and self-judgement. There’s always something useful for practice. Period.

I’m surprised that this reminder does not bother me. I usually find references to god unendurable. But for some reason this works for me. It works like nothing else to remind me that everyone is my path.

Take for instance last week’s trip to the bank. I have several accounts at Bank of the West in my town. I opened the first account when I moved here 8 years ago, and I have a couple savings accounts, two business accounts, and my husband also has accounts there. For at least 5 of the last 8 years I have come in weekly to deposit checks from my business. At various times I have had over $100K deposited here.

It has never once happened that any employee of the bank has gone out of their way to smooth the way for a transfer or to help me have something happen faster. Last week I had a small check from a new client written to my new company. I didn’t yet have the paperwork from the state to open a business account. Any other bank would have let me deposit it in my personal account; I had asked several other people if their bank would do this and they said yes. In fact, I have had other banks do that exact thing.

But I knew that this bank wouldn’t. Yet, I seemed to want to get angry, I seemed spoiling for a fight. And Kathy, the account manager who most often shook her head and said in her high whispery voice, “No, we can’t do that,” was going to help me. I’d been hoping for Joan, who at least had a sense of humor about these things, but I was going to get Kathy. And as I sat and waited (25 minutes, 28 minutes…) I seethed. And then I thought, What does it mean to see the face of god in Kathy? And instantly a smile stretched my face. Kathy as the face of god was a lesson in patience, in expectations, in self-righteousness, in judgement. Ohmigod, she was the perfect lesson. It had to be the face of god, because it was so perfect.

So eventually Kathy came and got me (I didn’t notice how long I’d waited–I was so tickled by this “face of god” thing—looking around at the old gent, and at the young teller who had learned her lesson well and told me “no” at least 5 times—all the face of god!) and I asked her and she shook her head as if I was asking her to open her cash drawer and give me all the dough, and make it quick.

And the next day my paperwork came through, and I went back to my bank, and Kathy opened my new business account for me. It took at least an hour… but I smiled through the whole thing. Bank of the West is the face of god.

One of my favorite aids-de-practice is a collaboration with my Zen Pal.

Every morning we e-mail each other with our “3 MITs*”. *Most Important Things. Two of them are work or personal life related (“Make appointment with dentist” “Finish website design”) but the third is always practice-related (“Be aware of anxiety” “Non-manifestation of anger day” “As often as possible, as long as possible”). I then copy and paste my practice MIT into my online calendar, and set it to send me a reminder hourly.

It is very effective at keeping practice upper-most in my mind. I particularly like it when I’m in a business meeting and I check my PDA and it has a message like, “Be aware of the wind on your cheek.” It’s great help to be pulled out of a negotiation, to get some distance. Or sometimes it happens when I’m riding my bike to the store and I’m busily planning away, and I get a message to “Be aware without ceasing” and realize that I am in the middle of life, instead of plannning for life to begin.

Only occasionally does one of the sayings apply to where I am right then. When my husband is home, I like to have “The first rule of relationships: refrain from blaming.” It’s nice to notice how often I blame him when I’m upset, and how it is just a believed thought, and not true at all. I think he likes it, too. This morning I said, “It feels like you are bullying me.” He started to defend his last statement and I said, “No, I don’t mean that you are bullying me. Just that it feels that way.” He smiled and went about his business, not changing, giving me the opportunity to practice with my believed thought.

Struggle struggle struggle with that Being Kindness Meditation and my distaste for those imaginary feelings, for pretending, for what seems to me to be the mainstream religions’ reliance on “Do what I say. I know best. I talk to god.” Sit down on my cushion with an interior grumble. Realize that I’m happy to be on my cushion with Susan, Ellen, and Carol there on their cushions/chairs.

But when I started the CD of Ezra’s talk (from 2004) on forgiveness, and I heard his voice, my heart just melted. How could I be mad at this teacher? He was so smart and accepting. I smiled inside. Maybe on the outside I had one of those little Buddha statue smiles.

And then Ezra asked us all to picture a person we had resentment for. I started to go to my usual suspect (a man I knew 20 years ago–pretty safe!) when suddenly a woman’s face zoomed into view and I realized that I’d been struggling with my resentment for this person for weeks. It had just been in the background, hiding behind the main scenery, due to over-painfulness.

So I kept her in mind as I listened to Ezra. And I was aware of this sensation of something pushing against my face, my nose, my mouth, and my chest, every time I thought of her. And right then, Ezra said, “Be aware of the wall you have up.” That’s it! It was a wall.

He’s so smart.