It has been just over three months since my last blog entry. I am disappointed in myself. I really intended to write more regularly when I started this blog, even if the posts were short and banal, but instead I have succumbed to torpor and let the practice of examination through writing stagnate somewhat. But the title of this post is actually not a reference to the gap in blog posts; it is a reference to my sitting practice.
Around April 10, I injured my right foot while playing frisbee, and eventually I had to get a cast put on. At first, I used this as an excuse to take a vacation from zazen entirely (since I disliked sitting in a chair -- lower back pain being one reason). But I eventually did make myself start sitting again; at first in a chair, then I even gave my pillow/zafu method a try with my right leg extended out. My practice is still rather haphazard compared to the trend I was on before the injury, however this experience has yielded some insight into my approach to practice.
I have often wondered why I try to do zazen every day. I mean, I practically jumped at a chance to stop doing it, guilt-free... If it is such a burden then why do it? Like, even if I would sit every day for a week, I would still have bad days and good days; I would still snap at people sometimes; I would fall easily into greed, hatred, and delusion. Well, after my vacation, I noticed that when I wasn't sitting regularly, my bad days were worse and I would fall into the three poisons more often. This is one observation which got me back on the wagon, if only by one hand and jumping to keep up. I'm guessing the effect that I observed is akin to that which I have heard Brad Warner, among others, describing; like brushing one's teeth, daily zazen shakes up some of the stuff which has settled in the mind, allowing it to drift along its way and yielding more clarity. With this additional clarity, one is less likely to be tricked by deluded thinking and fall into negative patterns. Okay, so I sit zazen in order to suffer less. Oh, I also remember my dreams much more.
It bugs me to think that I should be so transactional about this (see "Thank you for your service"); in other words, I give up the time every day it takes to meditate and I give up some degree of comfort while I am meditating in exchange for less suffering. It further bugs me that I should fall into comparing mind to motivate myself back on the cushion (I am MORE calm and aware when I do zazen than when I don't). But all this hemming and hawing is just silly! I am forgetting that practicing zen is really for the benefit of all beings (including myself), and there is no reason to be bugged by the natural fruits of practice. I feel discouraged when I think that there is no way sitting on a cushion can affect the countless hearts of people I will never meet and therefore can't end the world's suffering... but that is silly too because I am forgetting the ways in which I benefit people with whom I interact on a daily basis; when I am calmer and more aware, my actions are more skillful, and I am thus beneficial to others. One of the vows I chant after sitting goes, "Beings are numberless; I vow to save them." It doesn't say "all of them." Over the course of one life, the beings one can "save" or more practically "benefit" are indeed numberless. And so I practice for the beings I CAN benefit, and pray for the ones I can't.
As a final thought, and a further turning of this dharma wheel, I just wanted to say that all of this angst and justification are totally unnecessary, and they are even avoidable if I were to just do the practice of just sitting. It occurs to me that "shikantaza" means not only "just sitting" when on the cushion, but "JUST SITTING!!!" when approaching the cushion as well; not rationalizing, not comparing, not scrutinizing... Just... Sitting... Letting thoughts that arise fall away whether I am on a zafu or a chair, in my room, in a zendo, or in the Rickover building listening to a complaint from a classmate...
Damn... this practice is so hard, but so important, too... I suppose if I suffer less, if I am more skillful with others, so much the better... But just sit, Burnham, okay? Okay.
