zenjones

This year I tried taking classes on a stationary bike. I’d never done it before, and whenever I told someone I was thinking of it, they usually shook their heads and said something like, “That’s for animals!”

Ever since I injured myself five years ago, I have not been able to run, and I have not been able to find an activity that would get my heart rate out of its sluggish rut. Spinning did that, and more.

The most valuable thing about spinning, however, was not the physical effects, but the awareness effects. It was a lot like practice period items where you take yourself out of your habitual, comfortable rituals and plonk yourself right in the middle of something new and awkward.

I started out terribly self-conscious. I was older by 20 years and heavier by 40 pounds than everyone in my class and, at first, I needed long breaks for my red face to fade from heart-attack-purple to sun-stroke-pink. In a way, it was kind of liberating. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone and there’s no way I was going to. I gave myself up to the clutziness and just enjoyed it. In fact, I was so glad to be over-50 and not having to worry about what the guy behind me thought of my butt. I just stopped worrying what people would think and thought about what was important to me.

My workouts were my workouts. If I wanted to coast along that was okay. As I got more stamina, I started having fun seeing how fast I could make those pedals turn and impressing the heck out of myself. And the music! The music was fantastic—a lot of it was songs I’d never heard before, y’know, songs the kids are listening to. But I sat right under the speaker and there were times that I felt the music in a way I hadn’t done since I was chooblin’ at Grateful Dead happenings in the sixties.

And then it became really fun, in a way that exercise had never really been for me. I felt so much better on days when I took the class. I’m sure it was because of endorphins and heart rate and adrenalin and whatever, but it was also the act of doing something where all I really had to do was be aware.

So I get to work on judgements and attachments and envy and acceptance and pity and smugness, superiority. But there are also lovely moments of joy, of being in my body and feeling how dutifully it works, how it gets stronger, how really fabulous it is to stretch out those calf muscles, how lovely it is to stop. And how good it is to be 50-something wearing  skintight bike shorts with the three-inch-thick seat pad, and not care if other people think I look funny. Too much.

While sitting this morning, I had a little revelation. It wasn’t like a bolt of lightning, nor is it crystal clear. But I saw, in a different way than I’d seen before, the way that being in the moment contributes to peace on earth. I saw how our opinions of everything keep us separate. I saw how I am so busy believing thoughts about this or that person, event, or thing, that I am restricted from being open to that person, event, or thing.

Does that make sense? Do you all know this, and have known this for years, and I’m just a little slow? It feels like one of those things I learn in layers, each time I gain a little depth of understanding.

Speaking of you all, I have been surprised on at least five occasions lately to learn that people are reading this blog. I keep running into you—Hi Sue! Hi Todd!—and some of you write me very nice e-mails about how you like my blog. Thank you very much.

My original idea for this blog was that it would be more of a conversation, not so much of a monologue. Though it does keep me focused on practice period, which was one of its purposes.

So, I encourage you to comment. And I don’t know if I made it clear, but this blog is very private. Only the people in our zen group have access to it. Plus, if you’d really like anonymity, you don’t have to use your real name. Why, you could be a different gender. Or age. Or species!

Planning is my safety net. When things get tough, I start planning. I revel in the illusion that, with enough planning, I can control my life. When I label my thoughts, I mostly say, “Planning. More planning. Planning again.”

I’ve whittled the job choice down to two, one in San Francisco and one in Boston. On Wednesday, I talked to my possible future employer in Boston and told him what I wanted and described my imagined role, and he said, “Yes, yes, whatever you want!” And I was pretty excited. I was convinced my decision was made. And I dove right into the delicious planning behavior. I found apartments, I made lists (get PO box, cancel newspaper, plan monthly visits back to Sonoma County to coincide with Ezra’s visits, etc. Etc. Etc.). I felt this really lovely buzz right under my skin that felt just like my favorite drug only without the jagged edge. I was in the zone and I was determined to stay there.

But when I woke up the next morning, before I could get the planning walls in place, I felt this big wad of soggy sadness right in the middle of my chest. And right behind my face bones, barely contained by them, was a pool of tears. I suddenly realized I’d be leaving my husband for six months (at least). It was a fact I’d hidden from, behind all that planning.

And so this weekend, as I ping pong between the coasts, I am stopping myself from planning. Yes, I try to go there, but for just today and tomorrow I’m giving my body a chance to tell me it’s secrets, and letting my planning brain take a little vacation.

Earlier tonight, as I described my job in Boston to my husband, I got very excited. That’s real, as real as the fact that I won’t be waking up next to my husband if I take that job. Being aware of these little facts, not planning, doesn’t really make the decision easier. It just gives me more information, makes the decision more authentic, and maybe, when I wake up crying in Boston because I miss my husband, I won’t be surprised. Or if I wake up crying in San Francisco because I don’t get to create a new company in Boston, I won’t be surprised.

Saw a new TV show against my better judgement. It’s called “Life,” and the premise is that this cop was framed and served 12 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Now he’s out, with several million dollars in a settlement for wrongful imprisonment, and he’s decided to go back to being a cop. The show hooked me when I watched the opening segment and it showed our hero, Charlie, being pummeled by the other inmates and then reading a book with “ZEN” on the cover.

So he’s the zen detective. He’s got a bit of that Monk-type wackiness, and the simplicity of the zen ideas is a little embarassing, but there are some good, fun illustrations. My favorite was when he buys a really powerful car (I don’t know what kind it is, I think a Bentley?) and he drives around saying, “I will not become attached to this car,” over and over again, but he’s having so much fun roaring around in it that it seems impossible he won’t get attached to it. Of course, in our practice, we would notice the attachment, not necessarily try to be unattached. And then, at the end (spoiler alert), his friend accidently drives over the car with a tractor and Charlie just smiles at the lesson. We don’t know whether he’s attached or not, but we do not know that he gets that this is his path.

Was aware of pity yesterday; noticed I didn’t feel much compassion for those I was pitying. Interesting how the two concepts sit side by side, but aren’t the same thing at all. Those near enemies are insidious.

But in being aware of pity, I also noticed the distance I placed between myself and people who I would have thought I pitied. I have a friend who’s been an alcoholic for ten years and I am so angry with him for taking away the person I think of as my “real” friend (him when he’s sober) that it’s all I can do not to sniff in disdain. I don’t know if he notices—he’s pretty much out of it all the time. But I have been noticing.

I was in San Francisco, walking around, yesterday, and so I encountered a lot of homeless people. I didn’t notice pity, but I did notice a lot of discomfort. There was an entire alley that looked like a homeless encampment. Sleeping bags and shopping carts overflowing with rags and bulging plastic bags lined one side of the street. A couple fought loudly. I mostly noticed ways I distanced myself from them—distaste, “not me” thoughts. But there was curiosity also. How did they get to this place? Would they rather be inside a home or an institution? It was a brightly sunny day; if I had a choice (and I don’t know that these people did), I’d rather be sitting on a curb in the sun than locked into a hospital ward. I saw a burly gentleman, in layers of rags, that I’d stepped over several times last week as he slept on a sidewalk. But yesterday he was driving a late-model car in good shape. It was stuffed to the gunnels with bedding and clothes, but he was driving it. All so interesting.

Today I’m going to notice light. This morning while I was moving around my yoga positions, I turned out all the lights. I was surprised how bright the room was—the little blue light on the stereo, the light from the computer monitor in the other room, and a night light stuck in a wall socket. My eyes acclimated to the tenebrous room, and moonlight made a pattern on the carpet through the window sills.

I need my distractions. Need them. It looks like if I don’t have them I invent new things, and the new things are too distracting, they don’t fit. I’ve refined my distractions to work nicely with my life, protecting me from awake-ness while still allowing me to function.

So in a fit of pique, I cheated. I read during breakfast this morning, and then I just read while I was drying my hair. These were two things I gave up for Practice Period. So I am noticing my “bad zen student!” thoughts, and my justifying thoughts (“I need them!).

Today I will notice escapes.

Oooh, I just had a flare up of anger. Wonder what it was all about. Heat in my chest, moving up to my throat, where there was a closed sensation, plus some agitation, a generalized buzz. My core belief was, “How dare she imply that this simple act I’ve asked of her is an imposition! After all I’ve done for her!” Oh, and then on to the martyr, “I give and I give and when I ask one little thing…” Hah!

But I think the underlying fear was “I’m not worth her time; I’ve known all along that I don’t deserve for people to do me favors, but now she’s found out the truth. I’m worthless.”

Deep breath. Still a little shaky-buzzy. Feel like crying.

I’ve decided that the real gap in my practice is that spot right there—the fear before I cover it up with the anger and the justifications and the lovely all-purpose martyrdom.

No wonder I don’t want to go to that spot. It feels yucky, scary, heavy, bad. But the truth is, not going there just gives it more juice. And it’s a passing thing.

I’m heading up to the cabin today where there’s no Internet connection. Some day our satellite dish will come…

Time in the wilderness is usually full of “simple moments of delight.” My friend, Steve, and I just do one thing after another, and we don’t do it fast. We’ve been insulating this place for a year now—most of it in our minds. But we wander around the national forest the cabin butts up against, looking at animal scat or interesting fungal growths on the trees. We have very long breakfasts, and then we read for a while. This trip we’ll be gathering and chopping firewood which is the most pleasant way I’ve ever fueled up. We’ll spend some time discussing the next step in our insulation plan. Which will morph into the room addition, the shower we fantasize about, and how we can get the little stream to give us enough water pressure to turn on a solar hot water heater. Hours. Then it’s back to the hammock for a couple hours in the mystery novels, with short breaks to watch the fish in the pond, the notice the scent of the sun through the pines, and to discuss that particularly odd birdcall.

In short, it’s a very zen existence. Very easy to stay in the moment.

This trip will have fodder for practice, however. I’ve been offered three jobs and must choose one by Monday. Ripe with obsessional possibilities.

I came to realize that most (all?) borders are intellectual constructs, ideas we sign up for to keep events in discrete spaces. But life is always evolving.

Take yesterday morning. As I watched light creep up on the world, I never saw the moment it became day. Even at 7:08, the sun had not risen but it was nearly completely light. Certainly I could have read by that light. So where is the border between night and day?

Yesterday morning I also took Ezra’s suggestion and broke my usual half-hour period on the cushion into two 20-minute periods with 5-minutes of walking meditation in the middle.

One of the mysteries of our group’s practice for me has been kin-hin. It was immensely helpful when I learned that the rhythm of our footsteps is tied to each person’s breath: each step follows each breath. But I’ve noticed that some slow walkers are in constant motion and some take a step—wait—take another step. But maybe I just want to find the borders on it; maybe they aren’t really there, it’s all becoming the next step. Every moment is both leaving the last moment, being this moment, and also becoming the next moment.

I think one of the gaps in my practice is holding onto the idea that things should be black and white, this or that. Yesterday helped me to see that, and to be aware that most of life is in process, is shades of gray.

Today, in honor of our reading this evening in Pema Chödrön’s book The Places That Scare You, I plan on “staying awake as possible to whomever I meet on the street.” I should have a lot of opportunity for this, since I have meetings in San Francisco this morning and in Santa Rosa this afternoon.

PS: In case anyone missed it, Patty Hawes posted a comment from the road under the story “Celebrate non-manifestation of anger day!” Tomorrow she heads into a three-month long silent retreat. Does that silence include an Internet connection? What is the sound of one hand typing?

Lawrence App, a serial attendee of the Santa Rosa group’s annual sesshin, wrote to tell us about the upcoming release of his latest album.

Hello friends.
For many of you, I’ve been on a long hiatus, working on a new album. Sorry for being out of touch so long. I’m pleased to say that the album, called “The Dream of Separation,” is finally finished and will be available this week. I’m really excited about it and think it’s some of my best work to date.

In addition to the new CD, I have a new website dedicated to music of “The Dream” which will also contain some non-industry content related to personal and spiritual growth.
I invite you to take a peek at (and listen to) what’s to come. Lawrence App: The Dream of Separation
Of course, for regular music biz stuff including gig schedule please visit LawrenceApp.comI look forward to hearing your feedback on this new venture.Peace,
LA

The music is wonderful, and speaks to ideas that we talk about in our meditation group.

But I had no idea Laree was musically gifted and skilled. Yet another reminder of the pointlessness of my judgements.

Today I was surprisingly un-angry, un-resentful, un-irritable. It was a highly-scheduled day—I think that when I’m doing, I’m not so apt to find comfort in the distraction of anger. I already have the distraction of busy.

I was pretty much asleep-in-the-Zen-sense all day, caught up in my personal drama of doing, doing, doing. But there was a break after a job interview and before dinner with my goddaughter when I went to the plaza in Mill Valley. I bought a book and sat in the waning light, one of the last summer evenings. The sound of children laughing and crying, of parents talking, balls bouncing, and cars driving by mixed with the warmth of the sunshine on my face. I could see a Pistache tree, halfway between green and brilliant orange. It was a heart-wrenching external manifestation of the day, my life right now, and maybe life all the time. I go along thinking this is my life, and the next second, it’s something completely different.

The only thing I remember being resentful about was when I fulfilled my commitment not to read while eating. I was angry at Ezra! It was all his fault I couldn’t do my normal, mechanical behavior.

Thanks, Ezra!

Today I will be aware of borders. Like the border between summer and fall.