Boredom as The Way

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."

The Voice of Boring ..... zzzzzzzzz

I really love writing for this blog. I want to thank everyone who’s been tagging along and sending me wonderful comments, sharing your experiences with me. I also want to specially thank Gerry Rumold for loaning us the laptop we’re using for big chunks of time every day. It’s been a huge gift. Thank you!

This week we’re moving into the more serious space of actually doing facilitation with one another in small groups of 10. This has intensified the whole experience for me, even while I'm beginning to feel the excitement of the "project" of Big Mind wear off.

I'm starting to feel pretty ordinary being here as I settle into the routines more deeply: wake up, meditation, breakfast, work hour, free hour, teaching & practice, lunch, free time, afternoon with Roshi, dinner, zazen or teaching

I'm bored. I started feeling bored a few days ago. On top of it all, feeling bored catapults me into worrying about not being engaged in the process. I feel sleepy during meditation and I yawn even when Roshi’s facilitating. It’s really true what they say: wherever you go, there you are. I think I’m coming face to face with myself. I bore myself.

This afternoon, Roshi facilitated the Voice of the Sexual Pervert again. A collective groan went through the group. I interpreted the groan as “oh no, can’t we move on from this, we’re bored with this one by now”. Alistair interpreted it as “oh, no, not again, we’re uncomfortable.” I guess I know what I was projecting.

Still, my boredom made the afternoon stretch into an eternity. Every time I thought Roshi was finished with the voice, he’d just start into another aspect of it. Then I spent some time feeling guilty that I was bored. All the reasons started colliding in my head: I’ve come from across the country to be here, I moved my life around just to be here for a month, not to mention spending a lot of money on this training, etc., etc. Being bored just doesn’t fit in with my idea of how I should be: an industrious, attentive, good little Zen student. All bright-eyed with enthusiasm, sharing frequently and openly in the group. But that’s just not my reality.

But isn’t that what Zen is all about? Not having preferences of one thing over another? (Or is that just another idea I’m trying to shoehorn myself into, one that fits in with my particular view?) Zen is definitely not about moralizing one way or the other. But that one flies in the face of my recovering fundamentalist Christian background, one that preferences good over evil. Or at the very least, good behavior is supposed to reward me better than if I am bored. Gratefully, in a conversation with one of the monks this evening, he validated me, saying that it’s okay for me to be bored. That maybe this voice is fairly integrated in me. That makes sense to me. Maybe that’s why doing corn starch massage at retreats bores me stupid. Been there, done that. I don’t even need the t-shirt. I’d rather wash my hair.

Deeper down though, what I secretly fear is that I’m missing out on something if I’m busy being bored. For instance, I’m admittedly attached to awakening. What if I miss the moment of awakening just because I’m bored?

On the other hand, what if I just give myself a break and admit that yes, every single moment of my life is precious and awakening can happen at any moment. Even when I’m not looking. Even when I’m bored. Maybe even because I’m bored. Now wouldn't that be a trip? That makes me laugh!

The Third Party Rule

Alistair and I had Date Night the other night. (Let me tell you, it’s not an easy thing to do with a houseful of people and the bathroom right next to ours. I found myself wishing for the privacy of our beloved Quonset Hut where we can make noise.) We usually start out with a check in, letting go of anything hanging on from the day, including any pesky resentful niggles. We try let go of anything that might come between us. What we want is intimacy with each other.

Awhile back, Alistair and I came up with only one hard and fast rule for date night, which is the Third Party Rule. We discovered that when we’re together in intimate space and we wind up talking about someone else, then the intimacy and the positive energy between us drops like a stone. After invoking the Third Party Rule, we also notice that the intimacy gets more intense and more pleasurable. The trick is to catch myself doing it, because talking about also feels pleasurable. Some call that negative pleasure; I call it dishing.

To use the 3-2-1 of Ken Wilber (3rd person, 2nd person, 1st person) -- a very handy guide -- talking about (3rd person) something or someone else rather than from myself (1st person) is an energy killer. Intimacy goes down the toilet and I’m engaged in something else. Instead of intimacy (just another word for process) opening up between me and you, it starts to close down.

I’ve noticed this seems true for the Big Mind process too. When we speak as the Voices (1st person), the power of the process increases dramatically and I’m right inside it. “I statements” are pretty much the name of the game. Just the opposite is also true. When I don’t speak as the voice, instead I’m offering an opinion, a tasty piece of scholarship, debating with another person, I’m talking about something (3rd person). If other people do this too, then the group starts to fray at the edges. We start to look more like a bunch of chickens scratching around competing for their feed. It’s fun but not terribly intimate.

Last Friday, Diane did a bit of superb facilitation. (Now I’m speaking about, so let’s see how I do.) The group started to debate, opine and pontificate on the subject of Buddhism. The group cohesion was starting to come apart. Diane (who is an extremely gifted facilitator and hangs out mostly in the emotional subtle energy realms), stopped the action. She named it and then asked to speak to the Voice of Complete Peace. Click! the group came back together. Then she asked each person to offer their perspective -- just one -- on what they know about Buddhism. What emerged was an incredibly moving sharing of each person’s intimate experience of Buddhism. Speaking from the non-dual state brought clarity and intimacy to us again. Not to mention less squabbling.

When I’m in a non-dual state, it’s hard for me to speak and put language to what I’m experiencing. This is a VERY familiar, and frustrating, feeling for me. It happens most often when I’m hanging out with the mystics at home. Diane’s skilled teaching is helping me to put language to the non-dual experience and to see it less as magical and more as ordinary. It is state that is easily accessible to me and I have definite feelings that go along with it that I can express in words. Some good words include bliss, everything’s okay, I AM, vastness, deep space, peaceful, no boundaries.

But even the non-dual has positive and negative aspects. The positive side is bliss, the cessation of all my disturbing feelings like anger, jealousy, fear, etc. It’s just IS-ness and so it seems almost silly to say anything more. The negative side is a kind of lethargy, apathy, dullness. What’s the use of doing or saying anything since in the ultimate reality of all things it doesn’t really matter?

Roshi is helping me to move beyond the non-dual, to the apex position that both integrates AND transcends the dual and the non-dual. From the apex, I have the flexibility and wisdom of acting, feeling and choosing the dual and/or the non-dual. Roshi encourages me to move past the non-dual as soon as I’ve got a taste of it because it can be highly addictive. And it’s just another way to get stuck.

Sitting in the apex position gives me the maximum flexibility, allowing for all my feelings, allowing me to act and express verbally, as well having the hawk’s eye view of Oneness. I am intimate with myself, Alistair and others.