Pain, Repetition, Variety, Boredom, Persistence

Pain, Repetition, variety, boredom, persistencePeg Syverson4/28/13When we start out in Zen practice we have an idea about what we are doing. Maybe wethink of it as a kind of inner adventure. We’ll charge into it and sit until we areenlightened. Or we think we will fix the things we don’t like about ourselves. Or maybewe think we can finally lay down the burdens we’ve been carrying: regret, depression,anxiety, grief. Maybe the teacher will give us the magic spell that will make our liveseasy and comfortable from now on. Maybe we’ll meet some nice people who won’tirritate and infuriate us or let us down like all those others out there. People who willheal us and approve us and love us. Maybe we can become purified or holy. Whateverour dreams of practice, the reality of this path is sure to dash them.The first thing you encounter is that sitting is generally uncomfortable, even painful.Your knees ache, your back hurts, your feet fall asleep, you feel agitated or sleepy, andthe 30 minutes seems to crawl by endlessly. The only reason you stick it out is thepeople on either side of you, who seem completely at ease. Why do something that ispainful when we spend most of our lives seeking comfort?Worse yet, you just keep repeating this same activity over and over again. In thebeginning, it’s true, there are thousands of fascinating things to think about, and infiniteimaginings you can entertain yourself with. But gradually it dawns on you that sittingand observing your mind is a little like babysitting a toddler—a toddler whose had toomuch birthday cake at a party. The crazy manic randomness of its energy is exhaustingto witness, and even more exhausting to try to control or direct. The longer you observeit, the more confused you are. Am I crazy? You wonder. Is this getting any better? And,how much longer do I have to do this? Surely this can’t be the goal of practice!But maybe that isn’t your experience. Instead you feel a flatness, boredom, checkingout. Life seems dull and uninteresting, and practice is like trudging along in a barrendesert, or wading through quicksand. Listlessness sets in as the sameness of practiceseems to reflect the sameness of life, work, relationships. You look about, andeveryone else seems bored too, just sitting there like tree stumps.At other times you want to jump out of your skin, as agitation takes over. There are somany better things I could do with my time, important things, things that are reallyneeded. I’m stuck here doing nothing when I should be taking care of my life and thetasks and people in it. How can I help the world if I am just sitting like a lump instead ofmoving, acting, talking, doing, accomplishing? My list of things to do just keeps growingand it never seems to get completed.---2Then again, you are overcome by grief or regret, swamped by sadness. You fear foryourself, for the world, for those you care about. Everything seems to be suffering and itis only getting worse. How can you even bear it? It is utterly devastating tocontemplate.And worst of all, the product of any of these experiences and reactions, is doubt.Maybe this won’t help me. Why am I doing it anyway? How can sitting in one place likethis do me or anyone else any good? Sure, it’s pleasant enough, but why not just go fora walk, or have a few drinks, or zone out in front of the TV? What do we doubt? Usually,we first doubt ourselves: Can I do this? Will it help me? Am I adequate to it? Then wedoubt the practice: This doesn’t seem right. How can sitting there doing nothing helpme or anyone else? Who on earth created this idea? Maybe I should be doingsomething else instead: yoga, tai chi, or that thing someone was telling me about at theoffice. We doubt the teachers: she doesn’t seem to be so wise. He said something Ididn’t like. They aren’t telling me what I wanted to hear. Maybe a different teacherwould be better for me. Maybe this is a complete waste of my time. This goes on andon, crumbling our will to practice and filling us with justifications for not showing up fully.We hold back or become intermittent and half-hearted. And it creates a spiral where wedoubt more and participate less.Sometimes this is called Great Doubt, but there doesn’t seem to be anything “great”about it. It is just totally flattening.Most people view practice in the beginning either as entertainment or as self-help. Soour first disappointment is, this isn’t fun, and this isn’t helping me. That’s OK, we allhave to start somewhere, and ignorance is as good a place as any. How could youpossibly know what this practice really is until you’ve engaged it for a good long while?I’ve been doing it for forty eight years and I’m pretty sure I can’t find words for it. We livewith contradictions: we long for variety and at the same time we long for comfort; wewant to learn, but we don’t want to change how we think; we long to have adventuresand at the same time we long for safety; we long to be enlightened, but we don’t havemuch time or patience. We want certainty and also surprise. We want to be intimateand we want to be independent. We live in the midst of these dynamic tensions, and weexpect somehow that they will get resolved. News flash: this is living, the negotiation ofthe Way. We have to decide, moment by moment, whether we will be faithful to ourconditioning, and the suffering it creates, or whether we will be faithful to our path, thepath of liberation for ourselves and all beings.Practice depends on persistence, and persistence is a function of our will andcommitment. Maybe you are satisfied with a few moments of peace and quiet in your---3busy life. Practice is good for that, and we would never deny you that momentaryrefreshment. But a true practice is so much more than that, and it evolves over alifetime. It is a deep source of nourishment, energy, and connection with all that is. Weimmerse ourselves in it, ultimately, not to rid ourselves of what is troubling, or to fix whatwe don’t like about ourselves or our lives, but to live more fully, deeply, wisely, andcompassionately. We are crafting, moment by moment, the lives we were meant tolead, the relationships we long for, truthful, caring, intimate, and free.Buddha, Yo-Yo Ma, Gandhi, Roger Federer, anyone you can name who has achievedthe ultimate expression of a human life, all of these figures we admire and revere haveone thing in common, extraordinary persistence. None of them have settled for safetyand comfort. But countless other not-so-famous people in our lives who have matteredto us, who have inspired and encouraged us, also share this quality. Unlimited beingcannot ultimately be bounded by doubt, agitation, boredom, anxiety, dread, busyness,or anything else we have tried to contain it with. These limitations can distract us, theycan absorb us, but they cannot destroy who we really are. Our choice is in what weattend to, where we put our energy and our imagination and our heart and our wholebeing.There is an open question posed by life, and we are its answer. We sit, day after day, towrestle with that koan in a protected space and time. What is our life about? How do wemeet it wholeheartedly, intimately?We do this practice day after day, week after week, year after year, decade afterdecade because it is the most valuable inquiry we can engage in, and it is one that canonly be answered by living it. We sit through pain, anxiety, illusions, boredom,emotional upset, changing life circumstances, disappointment, and doubt, as well asbliss, insight, and excitement. We just keep sitting. At our best we are actively engaged,poised and alert, curious and mindful, connected with all that is. What is accomplishedhere cannot be gained in any other way. We sit to cultivate the clarity, wisdom, andcompassion to answer life’s question wholeheartedly and fully, right now, right here,together with all beings.