In other news, my practice has been going strong for a little over a half-year now. Since January 1st, I’ve missed only three days. One because I plum forgot, one because it was 2am, I’d just driven 4 hours, and the next day I’d be sitting for 90 minutes, and one because I was knocked out with the stomach flu. Not a bad run for the first 188 days.

Yesterday, a neighbor tried to recruit me to come to her newly Lutheran church. I smiled politely, but was thinking about how uncomfortable I still get when people try to bring up religion in conversation.

The time was split up into three 25 minute sessions with 5 minutes of kinhin in between.  I was surprised by a few things.  First, it was easier than I expected.  At home when I sit, I find myself battling fidgetiness a lot, which I think comes from the fact I’m at home and have these nagging thoughts about other things I should be doing ("I should be doing the dishes" or "I should get to bed").  When you actually drive somewhere and your only intention is to just sit, it’s a lot easier to… just sit.  The other surprise I had was at the level of calm I felt afterwards.  While I was there, I felt relatively focused and relaxed, but when I left, it became really clear to me exactly how much tension and stress I’ve been carrying with me.  I hadn’t felt this calm in years.  It was pretty amazing really.  (Sadly, the next day I was pretty much back to normal.  But hey, realizing this is part of the process, right?)

Pine Wind’s a neat place.  If you didn’t know it was there, you’d pass right by while driving through the residential neighborhood that a few friends of mine from elementary school had grown up in.  They don’t follow any specific zen lineage:

Practicing the "Dharma Beyond Buddhism", at no time does The Zen Society exist to promote any peculiar religious doctrine, dogma, or teachings, and shares no formal affiliation with other Zen groups, denominations, or any hierarchy of Dharma Successors.

While most of the ten people there sat facing the center of the room, one woman faced the wall for two of the three sessions in a more traditional Soto style.  I decided to face the center of the room even though it’s not how I usually sit.  It didn’t bother me in the least.  While I didn’t really talk with anyone other than Ninshin, who was the one I spoke with over e-mail before attending, everyone was seemed very friendly.  I didn’t feel that awkwardness I remember feeling when visiting friends’ churches (or—ack—youth groups) as a kid.

I look forward to stopping in again sometime and while I still consider my practice a very personal thing, the experience definitely makes me want to hunt down a group closer to me that I can practice with periodically.

The final destination used to be my main question
But then I looked and all that I was searchin for was present

She got up after a few seconds, grabbed one of her toy cars and tried handing it to me. When I didn’t immediately take it from her, she leaned down and placed it in my hands. Apparently my mudra was sufficient for toy car storage.

Best zazen session ever.

Every day priests minutely
examine the Dharma
and endlessly chant
complicated sutras.
They should learn
how to read the love letters
sent by the wind and rain,
the snow and moon.

- Ikkyu (1394-1491)

(via Daily Zen)

Even when I fall asleep on the couch and wake up at 2am, I sit for ten minutes before going to bed.

Even when I’m battling a nasty cold and can barely focus on the wall ahead, I sit.

Even when my zazen feels “bad” or I’m completely distracted, I sit.

There haven’t been any breakthroughs. But I’m not waiting for any. I’m just getting started in this practice and will see where it leads. With any luck, it’ll bring some insight, clarity, and ultimately improve how I deal with situations and with other people.

Melancholia pushes against the easy “either/or” of the status quo. It thrives in unexplored middle ground between oppositions, in the “both/and.” It fosters fresh insights into relationships between oppositions, especially that great polarity life and death. It encourages new ways of conceiving and naming the mysterious connections between antinomies. It returns us to innocence, to the ability to play in the potential without being constrained to the actual. Such respites from causality refresh our relationship to the world, grant us beautiful vistas, energize our hearts and our minds

What I like most about Zen is that it doesn’t try to hide melancholy feelings.  It doesn’t encourage you to distance yourself from them.  It makes you see them for what they are and accept them as they come.  No doubt, it’s challenging to do this, as I’m finding to be the case an awful lot recently, but it’s essential in maintaining a life that’s not devoid of feeling but isn’t wallowing in constant sorrow, either.

The world exists as it is all across the spectrum, from extreme sadness to extreme happiness, and we’re doing ourselves a disservice if we run because we’re afraid to be sad.

Because when the cannibals come to the door, your chanting and your bells and your visualizations, your Secret and your gods and your mumbo-jumbo, your politics or your philosophy and ethics, all that will be gone. Just you looking down the barrel of a gun (Mao had that right) or at the razor-sharp teeth of a predator with your name on ‘em.

Oops, wait… no it’s not.

I’ve started off 2008 with an invigorated practice.  I have to admit that for the last three months of 2007, my practice was practically non-existent.  But I’ve sat my butt down on the cushion every day this year so far for at least 10 minutes, so that’s a start.

Something I’ve realized as I’ve entered back into practice a little more seriously is exactly how scattered my mind is, something I imagine everyone figures out pretty early on.  I’ll be sitting there, counting my breaths in an attempt to still things a bit and by the time I’ve gotten to ten I’ve thought about work, something I need to do, an idea about a blog entry to write, how I’m not catching these thoughts as they come and thus having a “bad” session, and then flashing back to some memory from childhood.  And this is in a 30 or 45 second span.  No wonder I feel like I’m all over the place… my mind is working triple and quadruple duty most of the time.

As I’m picking my practice back up, I’ve been on an informal search for a local sangha.  I’d like to have some people to sit with periodically and be around some others who I might be able to learn from.  Unfortunately, even though I live in the fastest growing county in the nation, there just aren’t many options that aren’t far away.  There is a Thai Vipassana temple near my work which I’ve considered going to, but I’m wondering whether that would be in conflict with the Soto Zen I’ve decided to practice.  Maybe I need to just talk to someone there about it.