Beginning again

Younger me

 For the past few years, I haven't been posting to this blog, except for photos and brief comments from our Zen sesshins (retreats) at Boundless Way Zen Temple.  I realized the other day that it would be a good idea to start writing again.  

I recently turned 70, and my accumulated years have given me a new perspective, not only about myself, but about the world. So much pain in the world, and in my own life, seems to come from making divisions and holding tightly to opposing views.  

A few weeks ago I accidentally encountered a former colleague who had caused me, and many people I care deeply about, quite a bit of pain a number of years ago.  When we saw each other, we exchanged surprised hugs.  I looked inside myself and could detect nothing angry, sad or afraid in my inner emotional field.  An exclamation,  a hug, smiles, and good-bye.  So simple, and such a relief!

The endless stories of distress and divisiveness that we hold on to so tightly are ways we humans use to cling to certain views that prevent us from seeing the underlying wholeness of life.  This wholeness is available all the time, and becomes detectable and sometimes vividly apparent through dedicated Zen practice.  Being with what is, without moving or looking away, allows the constructions of the mind to begin to dissolve and reveal what we miss when we are preoccupied with maintaining them.  

As Eihei Dogen, my 13th century Japanese Zen ancestor, says in his work "Genjokoan (the Way of Everyday Life)": "To study the Way is to study the self.  To study the self is to forget the self."  This forgetting, this dropping away, is only possible when we allow our attention to be with whatever the self has created to keep itself going.  Once that is done, it drops away on its own.  We can't make that happen, but we can set up conditions for these tastes of freedom.  Following these moments, something else will come along to cling to after the spaciousness wears off.  We don't turn into unfeeling Zen robots who never feel anything.  This practice is an endless series of being with, staying with and allowing of a dropping away of what binds us.  No forcing is required.  

May you find this easy, gentle way to release from the tight, twisted narratives that plague us all individually and as a planet.