MEDITATION

Meditation is of two types.

There is the experience of sudden enlightenment, and then everything is meditation, including reading this post. Typing this post. Very ordinary. Rarely appreciated. Guidance for this requires face to face instruction. Contact us if you are interested.

Another type of meditation involves the experience of gradual enlightenment. Formal sitting meditation, bringing awareness to our present moment, by moment, by moment, is often used as a practice of opening to gradual enlightenment. Most often, we come to meditation because we perceive that there is something not quite right about our lives. We’ve seen, or read about, someone who mediates and who seems pretty chill, serene, peace-filled. And we want that for ourselves. We begin formal sitting meditation, and we do find that we feel better. We can zone out a little bit, focus on our breathing, instead of our problems. Maybe our breathing slows, our heart rate slows, we are not as reactive to some minor bumps in the road as we used to me. Feels pretty good. The world may be in turmoil, but for the next half hour I’m going to be absorbed in tranquility.

The honeymoon.

Then. If we are lucky. We begin to notice that there is still discomfort in our lives. Perhaps as soon as we stand up from our meditation. Perhaps it is out and out hellish suffering. We can go one of two ways in those moments. We can try to expand our periods of time of tranquility through meditation, or alcohol, or drugs (what I chose), or longer meditation, or... Or we can face into the present moment, become the present nitty-gritty moment, surrendering to what is, rather than striving to reshape the world to fit our imagined peaceful storybook.

This requires that we look more and more closely at ourselves. Aware of our reactions -physical, psychological, emotional, conceptual - and how we turn our reactions into projections onto the world, that further muddy the waters. Going deeper into our own reactions, our own “dark” places, is pretty hard work.

The post-honeymoon.

Journeying into our own secret, “dark” places has the startling effect of revealing the tender heart that we each possess. The tender heart that is open to the suffering that goes on all the time. In this tender, vulnerable, open-hearted place, there is peace that surpasses mere tranquility.

Enlightenment is embracing a constantly breaking heart - embracing a constantly healing heart - embracing a constantly whole heart whole-heartedly.

In opening to this suffering, we find that we are inexplicably intricately connected with everyone and everything. We are it all. Just this. Arising arising arising arising as the net of wondrous Being.

As we are all connected, there is the spontaneous movement of action that may begin as social-action, and that inevitably leads to the realization of action that is always social. We can’t help but help. Seeing the world, and everyone in it, as ourselves, we naturally help. It is like the left hand helping the right hand in cooking a meal or making our bed or...

When a need arises, it is our need. When an action arises, it is our action. When suffering arises, it is our suffering. When joy arises, it is our joy.

My teacher, Jitsudo Ancheta Roshi, is that big heart of peace. For many years, he guided me with his words, his actions, including our meditation practice together. Things were easy, and joyful, and hard-work, and loving. We were all relatively physically healthy, with only few extreme challenges to our practice.

Our lives are different now. Jitsudo Roshi is being ravaged by Alzheimers. He is very clearly suffering more and more of the time, unable to accomplish tasks that were formerly soooooo easy. This is very distressing for him. The Alzheimers is implacable. Each week brings a further limitation on his everyday abilities. There is an old Zen saying that enlightenment is “Chop wood. Carry water.” And what becomes when we can no longer chop wood without cutting off a finger or carry water without spilling it everywhere. This sucks. It is very hurtful for Roshi. He is not going to improve.

A breaking heart. And then we caught together. And then we cry together. On and On. We don’t turn away from this hurting. We are turning into his hurt, our hurt. Living to alleviate the suffering. Practicing. Extending this practicing. Learning from our activities with Roshi and offering to...as ourselves.