Zen is an intensely first person practice. Sitting on the cushion, over and over again, referring back to the self. Or, to be more accurate, the No-Self.
Being aware of being bored these past few days has opened many doors for me. I’ve been having great conversations with folks about boredom and being bored and I’m discovering that many people are having a similar experience. So at one level, the experience of boredom is part of the overall retreat experience. It’s a collective hitting the wall and going deeper.
I’ve been having feelings of “is this all there is” and then grudgingly coming to accept that this is it, this is my life. I am the common denominator wherever I go. I am the meaning maker of my life. I am the one who experiences joy, anger, pain and everything around and beyond that. I bring the world into existence every day.
But it isn’t even I. It’s the awareness behind the ego-I. In a recent teaching, Roshi was using the metaphor of a tea cup for us/the ego. As the metaphor progressed and morphed inside me I could feel it turning into a teacup with no bottom, immersed in the flow of the ocean, just becoming a conduit for awareness. That’s where boredom is taking me. It’s becoming the path. This doesn’t feel like a terribly exciting discovery, actually. But it does feel like a huge relief to see clearly.
The state of non-dualism is becoming a familiar place to me. What’s more, I’m finally learning language for it. At Shalom and on retreat, we’re in a non-dual state often, mostly accessed through the heart. But there’s a tendency to treat it like, poof! surprise! we’re here! and no one really can tell us how we got there exactly (although there definitely are methods) and we mostly language the experience as God appearing.
Here, I am dropping myself into a non-dual state for hours every day. It’s starting to become a familiar feeling that doesn’t have any of the poof! feeling to it at all. At first, I feel a huge sense of relief simply to be in the non-dual state. It’s not like any of the screwed up parts of my life have disappeared, but I am in a larger, expansive state that holds everything – including my screwed up parts. Only in non-dual, it’s all really okay just as it is. I don’t even feel the need to do anything about it, because it has its own perfection, it just IS. But as I continue in the non-dual state, this “it’s all okay” feeling begins to feel like radical indifference. And that’s very uncomfortable because (once again!) I’ve got this concept that I’m supposed to feel loving all the time. I believe that this is the ground giving rise to my boredom, even disappointment. Paradoxically, the non-dual Big Mind state is offering me a profound sense of responsibility in a state of being where there are no rules.
Moving into Big Heart, which is just as big as Big Mind but is the feeling aspect of it, feels like a relief. Whew, all of a sudden I care again. In Big Mind there’s no need to do anything at all, just be. Big Heart moves me back into the world and action once again. But one isn’t better than the other. They’re literally the yin and the yang of one particular state of being. Big Heart is the state of Kanzeon, Kuan Yin. Big Mind is the Buddha just sitting there. But for me to choose one over the other is just insanity, because that would be to deny a very important part of myself.
To switch gears here, Alistair and I have a fun weekend lined up. Joyce Harvey-Morgan is driving in from her home town of Boise, Idaho to join us for the weekend. We’re going to head out to the desert near Moab – maybe go to Bryce or Arches National parks. It’s been almost 70F lately and down to around freezing at night. I hear that the desert has even wilder temperature swings than that. So I’d better bring my woolies.
I’d like to close with a wonderful quote that Jim Hession posted to the blog today (thank you, Jim!) – it’s a good touch stone:
"The great affair, the love affair with life, is to live as variously as possible, to groom one's curiosity like a high-spirited thoroughbred, climb aboard, and gallop over the thick, sun-struck hills every day."
Being aware of being bored these past few days has opened many doors for me. I’ve been having great conversations with folks about boredom and being bored and I’m discovering that many people are having a similar experience. So at one level, the experience of boredom is part of the overall retreat experience. It’s a collective hitting the wall and going deeper.
I’ve been having feelings of “is this all there is” and then grudgingly coming to accept that this is it, this is my life. I am the common denominator wherever I go. I am the meaning maker of my life. I am the one who experiences joy, anger, pain and everything around and beyond that. I bring the world into existence every day.
But it isn’t even I. It’s the awareness behind the ego-I. In a recent teaching, Roshi was using the metaphor of a tea cup for us/the ego. As the metaphor progressed and morphed inside me I could feel it turning into a teacup with no bottom, immersed in the flow of the ocean, just becoming a conduit for awareness. That’s where boredom is taking me. It’s becoming the path. This doesn’t feel like a terribly exciting discovery, actually. But it does feel like a huge relief to see clearly.
The state of non-dualism is becoming a familiar place to me. What’s more, I’m finally learning language for it. At Shalom and on retreat, we’re in a non-dual state often, mostly accessed through the heart. But there’s a tendency to treat it like, poof! surprise! we’re here! and no one really can tell us how we got there exactly (although there definitely are methods) and we mostly language the experience as God appearing.
Here, I am dropping myself into a non-dual state for hours every day. It’s starting to become a familiar feeling that doesn’t have any of the poof! feeling to it at all. At first, I feel a huge sense of relief simply to be in the non-dual state. It’s not like any of the screwed up parts of my life have disappeared, but I am in a larger, expansive state that holds everything – including my screwed up parts. Only in non-dual, it’s all really okay just as it is. I don’t even feel the need to do anything about it, because it has its own perfection, it just IS. But as I continue in the non-dual state, this “it’s all okay” feeling begins to feel like radical indifference. And that’s very uncomfortable because (once again!) I’ve got this concept that I’m supposed to feel loving all the time. I believe that this is the ground giving rise to my boredom, even disappointment. Paradoxically, the non-dual Big Mind state is offering me a profound sense of responsibility in a state of being where there are no rules.
Moving into Big Heart, which is just as big as Big Mind but is the feeling aspect of it, feels like a relief. Whew, all of a sudden I care again. In Big Mind there’s no need to do anything at all, just be. Big Heart moves me back into the world and action once again. But one isn’t better than the other. They’re literally the yin and the yang of one particular state of being. Big Heart is the state of Kanzeon, Kuan Yin. Big Mind is the Buddha just sitting there. But for me to choose one over the other is just insanity, because that would be to deny a very important part of myself.
To switch gears here, Alistair and I have a fun weekend lined up. Joyce Harvey-Morgan is driving in from her home town of Boise, Idaho to join us for the weekend. We’re going to head out to the desert near Moab – maybe go to Bryce or Arches National parks. It’s been almost 70F lately and down to around freezing at night. I hear that the desert has even wilder temperature swings than that. So I’d better bring my woolies.
I’d like to close with a wonderful quote that Jim Hession posted to the blog today (thank you, Jim!) – it’s a good touch stone:
"The great affair, the love affair with life, is to live as variously as possible, to groom one's curiosity like a high-spirited thoroughbred, climb aboard, and gallop over the thick, sun-struck hills every day."
3 comments:
Dale here
I have an interesting month lined up. I went to a pagan Samhain rit last weekend, had a Native naming ceremony today, am getting my advanced Reiki later this month, and am reading your blog for a crash course in Buddism.
And I'm getting excited about Christams...to the point that I am getting excited about the new order, new birth, new world, baby J----s is coming sort of excited.
Yes...a strange over-all spritual excitement and growth is going on this month for me.
I also am feeling more grounded and am starting to take charge of my life better than I had a few months ago.
So yes, lots of reaching out and reaching in and reaching down.
That's where I'm at.
btw - what did you mean by non-dual states?
Love you both! Enjoy your weekend.
dear Pat, I am touched today to feel and hear how deeply friends are connected to you in your Big Mind journey. I keep seeing you in the desert but I cannot see what you are doing there. I have been thinking about what you said about dispassionate indifference. I want to share that in my frame of reference dispassionate indifference can sometimes look like a coveted experience. I often imagine I would be more loving if I experienced more idifference, i.e. accepting what is as it is without thinking of acceptance as the ruling out of momentary possibilities i.e. thinking of acceptance of as accepting things as fixed. It's something like accepting things as they are while knowing they may stay that while and equally they may also change and not trying to influence the outcome. Mind you that is not to say I would ever abandon reactivity, no, not at all, in part because it is by knowing the deep resonances and reactions I experience that I navigate the world and identify with whom and in what places I will learn and engage. It can also help me deepen connection by moving my own blocks out of the way depending on how I use it. My values and experience as I understand them seem to provide me with another set of eyes. I would not abandon any of my political self either which is hardly indifferent. I find there are different kinds activation and I'm not really sure I could identify all the possibilities when I am NOT indifferent. Going back to indifference, it is not for nothing necessarily I don't think. My brother bo has earned the name zenbo from his tennis friends because of his capacity for indifference in the heat of the game. They see it as a strength. I see this at work in his life also. Hope your time in the desert was wonderful. One of the more profound movies Ive seen is called the Sheltering Sky, set in the desert. I found the images of the desert overwhelming. I wanted to send you something funny related to the payoff of spiritutal practice if not good behaviour, a couple of Youtube videos I found of KD Lang. Of course I am guessing that there has been a change and guessing when I say it's a payoff for spiritual work and I could be wrong but I am finally enjoying KD Lang because of the playfulness she is showing along with other things. It isn't as much about ego she seems to have overcome if she has (I can't be the judge of that) as what she appears to have gained. It's to me as though she is sharing the joke now. I think the comment about women's lib is the ultimate in stupidity but it didn't stop me from enjoying the rest of the video below. Or maybe it wasn't spiritual work at all, maybe kd found her likeness in Toby MaGuire. You're a great sharer, Pat. hope your week this week is all you are hoping, Linda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxyuVs0SK9s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mJ5ciWd0_M
dear Pat, I am touched today to feel and hear how deeply friends are connected to you in your Big Mind journey. I keep seeing you in the desert but I cannot see what you are doing there. I have been thinking about what you said about dispassionate indifference. I want to share that in my frame of reference dispassionate indifference can sometimes look like a coveted experience. I often imagine I would be more loving if I experienced more idifference, i.e. accepting what is as it is without thinking of acceptance as the ruling out of momentary possibilities i.e. thinking of acceptance of as accepting things as fixed. It's something like accepting things as they are while knowing they may stay that while and equally they may also change and not trying to influence the outcome. Mind you that is not to say I would ever abandon reactivity, no, not at all, in part because it is by knowing the deep resonances and reactions I experience that I navigate the world and identify with whom and in what places I will learn and engage. It can also help me deepen connection by moving my own blocks out of the way depending on how I use it. My values and experience as I understand them seem to provide me with another set of eyes. I would not abandon any of my political self either which is hardly indifferent. I find there are different kinds activation and I'm not really sure I could identify all the possibilities when I am NOT indifferent. Going back to indifference, it is not for nothing necessarily I don't think. My brother bo has earned the name zenbo from his tennis friends because of his capacity for indifference in the heat of the game. They see it as a strength. I see this at work in his life also. Hope your time in the desert was wonderful. One of the more profound movies Ive seen is called the Sheltering Sky, set in the desert. I found the images of the desert overwhelming. I wanted to send you something funny related to the payoff of spiritutal practice if not good behaviour, a couple of Youtube videos I found of KD Lang. Of course I am guessing that there has been a change and guessing when I say it's a payoff for spiritual work and I could be wrong but I am finally enjoying KD Lang because of the playfulness she is showing along with other things. It isn't as much about ego she seems to have overcome if she has (I can't be the judge of that) as what she appears to have gained. It's to me as though she is sharing the joke now. I think the comment about women's lib is the ultimate in stupidity but it didn't stop me from enjoying the rest of the video below. Or maybe it wasn't spiritual work at all, maybe kd found her likeness in Toby MaGuire. You're a great sharer, Pat. hope your week this week is all you are hoping, Linda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxyuVs0SK9s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mJ5ciWd0_M
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