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I Make My Declaration
Dec. 18th, 2006 03:18 pm
I noticed that a woman whose LiveJournal I read regularly defriended me recently, presumably for popping off about my dissatisfaction with my run-ins with totemist groups (or "weres," or whatever they're calling themselves these days), my admitted baby-newishness when it comes to seriously considering my relationship with Rabbit, or just because my journal isn't the most interesting thing to read. :) We admittedly don't interact much, even in each other's spaces, though I do love reading what she has to say. Anyways, best wishes to her and I'm sure we'll run into each other again. Apologies to her or anyone else I might have offended or disappointed.
Anyway, zazen is...zazen. :) It's a bit like riding a bicycle; when you pick it up again after an extended period away you find yourself falling into the practice easily and comfortably. The sitting gets easier very quickly, and the focus you cultivate gets easier to carry with you throughout the day. Even on days when I don't sit (and I have to admit to dropping the ball here a few times), it's easier to just be mindful of what I'm doing from moment-to-moment. It's a very cool thing to feel like you're living your practice from breath to breath, at work, at Taco Bell, in the shower, even watching television...
This combines with my writing to make me feel like...I have a better handle on who I am and how I tend to express myself. I can look at myself objectively, chuckle at myself when I'm being empty-headed, or afraid and insecure. Walking into work one morning this week it struck me how afraid I am, of everything, all the time. It also hit me how Rabbit has been gently nudging me toward recognizing how pervasive that fear has come to be, and how to begin the long and arduous work of untying all the knots that I've been developing through just being scared all the time.
I've been through an awful lot in life. Not as much as some, but a lot of bad stuff has happened to me. I've survived it, and I can be proud of that, but I didn't survive it intact. This probably happens with most people who have to deal with any sort of trauma in their lives; you find a way to cope, but not without taking a few lumps and scars. To make sure you don't have to go through that intense pain again, you deaden yourself against its source. Gradually we lose interest in new things, anything from taking a different route to work to taking a trip to a country we've never been to. We stick with the familiar because it makes us feel comfortable and safe. While there's nothing wrong with that *really*, we get accustomed to that comfort and start reacting badly towards anything will take us out of that, for good or bad. By the time we're adults we've closed ourselves to anything that deviates from the normal, cutting off most of the world for the narrow part that makes us comfortable. I do believe this is why people tend to grow more conservative when they get older. :) And this, I realize, is where I'm heading.
I don't think that my fear-based lifestyle is something unique to someone with my background or experience. It happens to everyone, all the time, in different ways. When you realize this, that most everyone around you does a lot of the things they do out of fear, it changes the world you look at the world. You're able to let a lot of people off the hook; people aren't assholes, they're just frightened.
Rabbit teaches this. He also teaches what to do with this fear; not to move around it, or hide it, or ignore it. He teaches you how to deal with the fear directly, to befriend it. Without learning this (even before I knew this was what I was learning), I doubt I could have made the move to California, or start awakening to so many other things now that I'm here. It feels like I'm waking up to the world entire after taking a big nap. :)
I realize this quite possibly sounds excessively New Age. Well, fine. Perhaps. But this is where I am right now. There are a lot of scary things in the world, and in my life, even, that I feel more equipped to deal with now than I would have been, say, a year ago.
There's a book called After the Ecstasy, the Laundry by Jack Kornfield, that describes the path of the spiritual, all the way up to encounters with satori and enlightenment. His idea is to chronicle what happens afterwards; how do Zen masters deal with unruly teenagers and people cutting them off in traffic? Believe it or not, enlightenment is some magical spiritual stasis that people remained locked into; you may have all the grace and wisdom of the Buddha, but you still might want to curse out that jerk who took the last parking spot.
The first part of the book details the spiritual journey, from those initial callings to quest for...answers, or comfort, or truth-with-a-capital-T. At some point, your search for meaning in the world at large reflects back into a search for *your* nature. And, as you peel the layers you've covered yourself with, you'll find grief, fear, anger, regret and sorrow over things you thought very long buried, according to Kornfield. This has been largely my experience with my practice; no matter what I keep coming back to the same issues with my birth mother, my adopted mother and father, old boyfriends, friends, teachers, mentors, people I respected, people who slighted me, turning over incidents time and time again, re-opening wounds so they can be properly tended to. It's a process.
Anyway, a lot of folks asked about what Rabbit is 'for', and that's what I think. That's the kind of work I've been doing with him. As for whether Rabbit is really a spirit guide or just a convenient subconscious construct, I'm still not sure. It helps, is all I know.
Anyway, zazen is...zazen. :) It's a bit like riding a bicycle; when you pick it up again after an extended period away you find yourself falling into the practice easily and comfortably. The sitting gets easier very quickly, and the focus you cultivate gets easier to carry with you throughout the day. Even on days when I don't sit (and I have to admit to dropping the ball here a few times), it's easier to just be mindful of what I'm doing from moment-to-moment. It's a very cool thing to feel like you're living your practice from breath to breath, at work, at Taco Bell, in the shower, even watching television...
This combines with my writing to make me feel like...I have a better handle on who I am and how I tend to express myself. I can look at myself objectively, chuckle at myself when I'm being empty-headed, or afraid and insecure. Walking into work one morning this week it struck me how afraid I am, of everything, all the time. It also hit me how Rabbit has been gently nudging me toward recognizing how pervasive that fear has come to be, and how to begin the long and arduous work of untying all the knots that I've been developing through just being scared all the time.
I've been through an awful lot in life. Not as much as some, but a lot of bad stuff has happened to me. I've survived it, and I can be proud of that, but I didn't survive it intact. This probably happens with most people who have to deal with any sort of trauma in their lives; you find a way to cope, but not without taking a few lumps and scars. To make sure you don't have to go through that intense pain again, you deaden yourself against its source. Gradually we lose interest in new things, anything from taking a different route to work to taking a trip to a country we've never been to. We stick with the familiar because it makes us feel comfortable and safe. While there's nothing wrong with that *really*, we get accustomed to that comfort and start reacting badly towards anything will take us out of that, for good or bad. By the time we're adults we've closed ourselves to anything that deviates from the normal, cutting off most of the world for the narrow part that makes us comfortable. I do believe this is why people tend to grow more conservative when they get older. :) And this, I realize, is where I'm heading.
I don't think that my fear-based lifestyle is something unique to someone with my background or experience. It happens to everyone, all the time, in different ways. When you realize this, that most everyone around you does a lot of the things they do out of fear, it changes the world you look at the world. You're able to let a lot of people off the hook; people aren't assholes, they're just frightened.
Rabbit teaches this. He also teaches what to do with this fear; not to move around it, or hide it, or ignore it. He teaches you how to deal with the fear directly, to befriend it. Without learning this (even before I knew this was what I was learning), I doubt I could have made the move to California, or start awakening to so many other things now that I'm here. It feels like I'm waking up to the world entire after taking a big nap. :)
I realize this quite possibly sounds excessively New Age. Well, fine. Perhaps. But this is where I am right now. There are a lot of scary things in the world, and in my life, even, that I feel more equipped to deal with now than I would have been, say, a year ago.
There's a book called After the Ecstasy, the Laundry by Jack Kornfield, that describes the path of the spiritual, all the way up to encounters with satori and enlightenment. His idea is to chronicle what happens afterwards; how do Zen masters deal with unruly teenagers and people cutting them off in traffic? Believe it or not, enlightenment is some magical spiritual stasis that people remained locked into; you may have all the grace and wisdom of the Buddha, but you still might want to curse out that jerk who took the last parking spot.
The first part of the book details the spiritual journey, from those initial callings to quest for...answers, or comfort, or truth-with-a-capital-T. At some point, your search for meaning in the world at large reflects back into a search for *your* nature. And, as you peel the layers you've covered yourself with, you'll find grief, fear, anger, regret and sorrow over things you thought very long buried, according to Kornfield. This has been largely my experience with my practice; no matter what I keep coming back to the same issues with my birth mother, my adopted mother and father, old boyfriends, friends, teachers, mentors, people I respected, people who slighted me, turning over incidents time and time again, re-opening wounds so they can be properly tended to. It's a process.
Anyway, a lot of folks asked about what Rabbit is 'for', and that's what I think. That's the kind of work I've been doing with him. As for whether Rabbit is really a spirit guide or just a convenient subconscious construct, I'm still not sure. It helps, is all I know.
