Blogging Fail.

Well, I failed to write an article today. I have a draft. It's mostly done. But it sucks. I thought if I just wrote about the thing that came to my mind that I would emotionally connect with it and that something of value my spew out. Or, in the case of my last blog post, something so ridiculous that it could be both funny in its absurdity and kind of valuable in its bits of truth.

But. It just sucked. So I won't post it now. I'll rewrite it later, because I really think there is something I need to say about the event I was writing about, even though it happened more than 10 years ago.

I could learn a lot in life by applying this principle to everything. Now is not always the time. The way I am thinking is not always right. In fact, it probably sucks. To put something away for a while, regardless of the energy around it. To let it gestate, until one day, maybe, it's ready to be said. I think that's wisdom, but I don't know. Because, really, I suck at doing it.

The Weight of a Million Tiny Lies

Reflections on turning 28.

I do not always end up thinking the way I 'should' on my birthday. It's supposed to be a joyous day, a day of celebration for your life lived and your life to come. For most people I think the celebration is tempered with awareness and contemplation. Certainly this was true for me as I was walking to the grocery store this morning (to buy toaster waffles).

At some point I realized that we all lie constantly. I mean, I knew this, but the degree to which lies infuse almost every thought and action we take is astounding. Buddhists might call this delusion - not lying - but I want to frame it as lying.

Frequently we lie to ourselves and to others without full knowledge of the lie. Some might argue that lying requires intent, and I agree; sometimes the intent is so subtle we don't notice it. Not-lying is so rare in most speech that I think it's worth talking about what not-lying feels like. Anyone who has ever played golf well, or hit a perfect note while singing at the top of their lungs, or truly sat for a period of time in peace, knows what this feels like. It is pure and effortless flow. There is a resonance in correctly doing something, and in finding that resonance all resistance drops away.

Just the same, there is a resonance in speaking truly, and it is the resonance of your outward form lining up in perfect harmony with your soul. In this notion of 'speaking', I'm including the words we speak to ourselves in the form of our thoughts. A true thought, one involving no deception or delusion, echoes through our soul without any discordance.

All thoughts have a certain energy about them - they can inspiring, depressing, or joyful, among other things. Thoughts vary in their intensity as well. Some thoughts can bring us instantly to our knees, others (most) simply pass by after taking our mind around in a few turns. If one watches one's thoughts for long enough it is possible to notice, in any untrue thought, its untruth. The untruth feels like the sound of a guitar string out of tune, a note missed, a symphony gone awry. Sometimes it is easy to notice, sometimes it isn't. The more ridiculous the lie, the easier it is to notice.

Hopefully, noticing the lie is cause for laughter. In the case of most our daydreams, when we notice them, and when we notice how ridiculous our view of ourselves is, this is certainly the case. In those instances the laughter defuses the lie and brings you back to the present moment, out of the delusion of your daydream. Other times noticing the lie can cause severe discomfort and spawn new dilemmas we must deal with.

Noticing silly lies about oneself, the root cause of the lie is often easy to determine. The desire to see oneself as attractive, powerful, or wise. Ego - simple, funny. When it comes to the subtle lies we tell to other people, or to the lies that underly the foundational notion of our life, the lie is much harder to spot, and the cause almost indeterminate.

In failing to notice these lies, we continuously harm ourselves and the people around us - most often the people we love most. In answering a question with a lie to spare someones feelings, we harm everyone involved. In lying to ourselves about our own needs and failing to communicate them we do harm.

Understanding this, it is incumbent upon us to train our minds to notice the discordances of the soul, just as one can train the ear to notice an out of tune instrument. Hearing the cacophony in our heart, it is incumbent upon us to understand the cause of the disharmony, and to tune it with love and attention, as a musician tunes her instrument. Failing to do this for too long, the small aberrations in our heart start to build up, until our perfect instrument of love is no longer noticeable as such, and is instead left a sad wreck of a forgotten masterpiece, suitable perhaps, only for burning.

Attempts to play such an instrument will inevitably result in disaster. In this the 29th year of my life, I want to stop trying to play my broken instrument and let it burn. I want to start building a new, beautiful instrument, from which God can play only beautiful harmonies of wisdom and of light.

Food Daze

While I was sitting tonight I found myself overcome by a desire to be at Sesshin. Days with nothing to do. Nowhere to go. Nowhere but here. No escape, no burning desire to get off the cushion and go do - what? But then, I remembered. It wasn't true. The mind will grasp at whatever it can. It doesn't matter that breakfast is 2 hours of sitting from now. Or that it won't come again until tomorrow. You can be hungry now. All of my normal anxiety was poured into food at my last Sesshin. My world revolved around it - I can remember the times, sitting at the benches, waiting for the other students to get their food so I could eat mine. And then the release. I didn't think it was possible to pig out on oatmeal, or go back for thirds of carrot soup. But it is.

I guess I don't know what I'm trying to say, except, maybe, that when that urge to be elsewhere comes up, on the cushion, or off, just realize - you can't run from yourself. You may as well sit down, relax, and get to work just being you.

Some things are hard.

It's late, and blogging every day is hard. Today was a pretty so-so day. No wise thoughts or experiences to relate, really. In the car driving to West Seattle today I became fairly upset with myself for an event that happened over the weekend. I criticized the teacher at the Zen group I sit with. I tried to make my criticism constructive and not overly accusatory or judgmental, but I think I failed pretty spectacularly.

In failing, I failed to convey what it was that I really needed to convey. That is to say, I hadn't thought enough about what, if anything I could or needed to convey. Instead I allowed myself to be pulled around by my gut reaction to the talk. The worst (or best, depending on your perspective) part of the whole experience is that I was painfully aware of all of this as it was happening, but I couldn't quite make the jump outside of my conditioning to react in a different way. Maybe next time.

Captivity Will Set You Free

I was eating a dinner with a friend tonight and I was reminded of a talk by Norman Fischer that I attended a couple of months ago. There was a lot of meditation, and talk about creativity, but at the end it boiled down to one salient point:

Choice is crippling and leads to paralysis. Freedom is found in accepting or creating limitations.

One only need to shop for toothpaste to appreciate this. Any of the choices in the aisle will almost certainly have the same effect on your life, yet we spend time and become anxious deciding what kind of toothpaste to buy.

My friend at dinner was talking about how she felt like she definitely couldn't settle in Seattle. She had too many friends all over globe, too many communities, too many different versions of herself. The thought of picking the one here and now and sticking with it was deeply unsatisfactory.

I can relate to the feeling. For the longest time any kind of travel would make me wistful and desirous of living a life I never had, of meeting people I would never know. Relative to the wide open possibilities presented by the fictitious other life I had created in my mind, my life felt trapped, confined and ultimately worthless.

Writing about this brings me back to a quote from Pascal that I read in Living with the Devil:

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone..."

To sit with yourself, alone, in a quiet room is to confront your life as it is. There is no room for imagined worlds where you are someone else who's problems are all gone. If you sit for long enough, you'll realize that no matter where you go, you'll always end up exactly where you left - in your body, in your mind.

To limit your life to its present scope and to accept this frame, these limitations, frees you from the tyranny of the unknown and the unknowable. The delusions and daydreams of your un-lived lives lose their power. You're sitting here, where are you, being who you will always be, and accepting it.

On the 8 in '09

One of the first thoughts I had as I boarded the number 8 bus to my office this morning is that I had no idea what to blog about today. None. So I decided to read instead of worry about it. I like to consume little bite sized bits of reading on the bus. Pieces that can occupy a bus ride and be complete. I tend to read Parabola when I get it, but that only lasts about a week or two. Right now I'm reading the winter edition of tricycle, which is a quarterly containing all kinds of Buddhist writings.

It's been a good read, but none of it has compared to what I read today: Not Found, Not Lost by Joel Agee. People occasionally ask me "Why Buddhism?" or some variant of that question. I occasionally answer well. Usually I bumble around and stumble over my words. Then I usually end up asking myself - why Buddhism? I can almost always answer myself. One day, I hope to be able to write something as succinct and beautiful as that piece. Then, I will just point to it. For now, I will point to Mr. Agee's work instead.

I don't want to summarize the article. In fact, I already tried and failed. I will just point out the two parts that really stood out to me. After many, many years of spiritual search, Agee stumbles onto the website of Peter Fenner. Peter offers over the phone counseling, and Agee relates their first conversation. The conversation is a breakthrough, not so much for what is said, but for what is not said. By the end Agee is left sitting on the phone content, saying nothing, needing nothing. I can relate to some very few interactions I've had with other people where there is no tension, just being. It's a beautiful thing.

Agee has several more sesison with Fenner along the same lines, and eventual arrives at something resembling what we might call lasting peace. He talks about applying his epiphany to the banality of everydayness. He closes with a simple passage, that, to me, sums up to purpose of Buddhism, and points simply and concretely at true enlightenment.

Sometimes I sit on a cushion for short or long periods of time. A person entering the room might think I am meditating and apologize for the distrubance. But that's not what I'm doing. I'm just sitting.

Getting down with Buddha

So I've been meaning to start this blog for a long time. Originally I was going to call it 'The Conceit of Mara', which I thought was very clever. It could be interpreted in several interesting ways, and I liked that. One night I mentioned starting a blog, and Phill joked that I should call it 'Sanctimonasticism'.

At first I was a little offended, because he was implying that I was sanctimonious. Then I realized that in addition to him being correct, it was also a really good name. It is irreverent and self-deprecating, yet it also conveys some amount of gravity. It's not too serious and stuffy like my old title. God knows one should never take blogging, or anything, too seriously. So here it is.

This will be attempt number 3, give or take, at blogging. I'm going to try and write something everyday, because I work best when I do things every day. We'll see how it goes.