My Couch is Everywhere
Sep. 14th, 2009 11:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebeI haven't posted an awful lot about Buddhism recently. Well, to be fair, I haven't posted a lot about anything recently. I think I've gotten to a point in my life where I'm more interested in living than talking about living -- sitting back to reflect is something that I've done in excess in the past, and I feel like it's kept me from actually doing the things that I've wanted to do.
I'm on something of an even keel now, though, so it's a good time to try and strike some kind of a balance. Living's well and good, but if you don't stop to check yourself out every now and again, how do you know if you're where you want to be? So for the next little while, this journal will be a way for me to stop and check up on what I'm doing, how I'm progressing with things that are important to me. Since Buddhism is a fairly central component in how I see myself, it only makes sense to start here.
That being said, I haven't read a Zen book in ages. This might sound arrogant, but I just don't think I need to. It's not that I've become enlightened (I'm not, by any stretch) or that there's nothing in the wisdom of masters old and new to take home with you (because there certainly is), but right now I feel the most important thing is to answer the call of immediacy in my life. No matter where I am, no matter what I'm doing, it's most important to be fully engaged in it. It feels easier and more natural for me to do this if I don't have the words of someone else in my head egging me on to do it.
This, I feel, is what all the old master are pointing you towards anyway. All of the poetry and wisdom and brilliant metaphors and shocking acts are for this very purpose, to wake you up, to put you in your own two feet, here and now. Doing this means more than being in your own head: it means stepping outside it to really see other people and understand what might be motivating them.
There's this arc in the Sandman comics that has stuck with me ever since I read it. In it, there's this blond Barbie girl (literally, that's her name) who starts out as this vapid stereotype, but as the arc goes on you see there's this entire world inside of her, with its own symbols and struggles that threaten to tear her apart or make her whole. One of the lessons you take from it is that every single person on this planet has that same condition. They're only one person, but they're also an entire world. You can never distill a reason for someone's action down to a single cause. There are multitudes of factors here. Being present means understanding that, navigating this ocean that resides in everyone you meet, determining the best course for interacting with them. It's not necessarily something you can think about. But it is something you can do.
Anyway, I have a lot to learn still when it comes to this. But I'm learning by experience instead of books. The zazen -- which is the heart of all Zen practice -- is still rocky, but I've learned to take the idea off the meditation bench and into my life. When I feel myself daunted by the blank page, I take a deep breath, and I type the first word, and then the next. When I feel myself getting frustrated or hurt, or wanting to withdraw from whoever I'm with, I take a deep breath, I place myself where I am, and I try to make the best of the situation. This is what zazen does for you; this is why you sit. And personally, I'd rather not sit and practice everywhere then only practice on the bench and forget about it when I step out of the door.
Spirituality is useless if you try to compartmentalize it. It has to permeate your entire life. You have to look at your relationships, your job, your exercise with the same mindset you use for your practice, or else it's doing you no good. You have to take the divine and put it in ever filthy corner of your life. You *must* make the spiritual vulgar. This, I believe, is what the masters say. And I just want to practice what they preach.
I'm on something of an even keel now, though, so it's a good time to try and strike some kind of a balance. Living's well and good, but if you don't stop to check yourself out every now and again, how do you know if you're where you want to be? So for the next little while, this journal will be a way for me to stop and check up on what I'm doing, how I'm progressing with things that are important to me. Since Buddhism is a fairly central component in how I see myself, it only makes sense to start here.
That being said, I haven't read a Zen book in ages. This might sound arrogant, but I just don't think I need to. It's not that I've become enlightened (I'm not, by any stretch) or that there's nothing in the wisdom of masters old and new to take home with you (because there certainly is), but right now I feel the most important thing is to answer the call of immediacy in my life. No matter where I am, no matter what I'm doing, it's most important to be fully engaged in it. It feels easier and more natural for me to do this if I don't have the words of someone else in my head egging me on to do it.
This, I feel, is what all the old master are pointing you towards anyway. All of the poetry and wisdom and brilliant metaphors and shocking acts are for this very purpose, to wake you up, to put you in your own two feet, here and now. Doing this means more than being in your own head: it means stepping outside it to really see other people and understand what might be motivating them.
There's this arc in the Sandman comics that has stuck with me ever since I read it. In it, there's this blond Barbie girl (literally, that's her name) who starts out as this vapid stereotype, but as the arc goes on you see there's this entire world inside of her, with its own symbols and struggles that threaten to tear her apart or make her whole. One of the lessons you take from it is that every single person on this planet has that same condition. They're only one person, but they're also an entire world. You can never distill a reason for someone's action down to a single cause. There are multitudes of factors here. Being present means understanding that, navigating this ocean that resides in everyone you meet, determining the best course for interacting with them. It's not necessarily something you can think about. But it is something you can do.
Anyway, I have a lot to learn still when it comes to this. But I'm learning by experience instead of books. The zazen -- which is the heart of all Zen practice -- is still rocky, but I've learned to take the idea off the meditation bench and into my life. When I feel myself daunted by the blank page, I take a deep breath, and I type the first word, and then the next. When I feel myself getting frustrated or hurt, or wanting to withdraw from whoever I'm with, I take a deep breath, I place myself where I am, and I try to make the best of the situation. This is what zazen does for you; this is why you sit. And personally, I'd rather not sit and practice everywhere then only practice on the bench and forget about it when I step out of the door.
Spirituality is useless if you try to compartmentalize it. It has to permeate your entire life. You have to look at your relationships, your job, your exercise with the same mindset you use for your practice, or else it's doing you no good. You have to take the divine and put it in ever filthy corner of your life. You *must* make the spiritual vulgar. This, I believe, is what the masters say. And I just want to practice what they preach.
