Refractions

It occurred to me this morning that I have been sitting with a sangha for coming up on two years next month. Internally, I joke with myself that this is my independent graduate study in mindfulness. For at least four out of the seven days a week for the past two years, I have been waking up at 6:15am to sit zazen and offer service with a Soto Zen sangha. I am currently studying the precepts in preparation to receive jukai later this year, which is a formal ceremony in which a Zen practitioner openly receives and acknowledges the sixteen bodhisattva precepts as an ongoing path in their lives.

While there are indeed unique travails in the experience of formalizing one's practice and joining a community of practitioners, it has has been a profoundly rewarding experience. "Contentment is frequently tied to effort,"is something my teacher remarked at one point along the way, and I am inclined to agree. Of all the accomplishments in life that stir any sense of pride in me, the ones that resonate most strongly were by no means "easy". (It makes me wonder then why I still shy away from hard things, like say click-clacking away on some keys to write a blog post, learning to play an instrument, or going out for a run...)

While sitting zazen, a lot of psychological material tends to come up. An animating feature of this blog was my internal question of "how much sitting do I need to do to claim myself as a real zen practitioner? How much is "enough?" These question of "what is 'real'?","how much is enough?"and "am I good enough?" have indeed plagued me for much of my adult life. Throughout my twenties, I struggled mightily with the drink, and as many who struggle with drinking and drugging find, they cannot easily extinguish the habit, despite their proclamations otherwise. In my mind, I had good reasons for engaging in the behavior; it was how I met people, it was what people did for fun, it was my source of employment for a time, and it enabled me to more fully socialize with others and have a good time, save for all the misery of course. At the root, this question of "enough" has profoundly disrupted my relationship with myself, my ability to see myself and my actions clearly, and my ability to have real relationships with people featuring intimacy and vulnerability. I am one who is saddled with the belief that I am not actually good enough. No amount of evidence or praise or self-esteem was going to impinge upon my fortress of shame. Shame causes you to shrink yourself; to hide your being behind affectations and things you *think* will do the trick to get people to like then love you.

Despite what others would say, be they adulatory words, proclamations of love and affection, or positive reinforcement for a job well done, my underlying belief was they're either lying, or just saying the thing to be polite, or some other permutation of they don't really mean that/if they only knew the real me. The shame led me to drinking, and the drinking reinforced the shame, and the shame propped up the idea that I separate and different from the good and normal people in the world.

While this belief is no longer a governing principle in my emotional system, it is a pesky little nag with more persistence and guile than I ever could have appreciated. I labored for years under the delusion that this next thing, that next job, the next milestone, or the next girl (this one really caused a lot of harm via serial monogamy and an inability to express my feelings to properly leave a relationship) would eradicate this insidious belief. While I have done the requisite work of dampening this belief and limiting the range it has in my life and mind, I would be lying to you if I said it was completely eradicated. For example, it regularly inhibits my doing this; to write. Crazy, right? Dear reader, I implore you not to suffer the same delusion. As Suzuki Roshi remarked to his students, "Each of you is perfect the way you are ... and you can use a little improvement.'

You are already whole. Please believe me when I tell you there is nothing outside you that will make you "enough". In you and expressed by your being is a refraction of the light that shines through the darkness of the universe. If you do not see this point clearly, you, much like my former self, are likely to cause yourself and others profound harm chasing after the paper rice cake you think will sate your hunger.