May 5, 2020
Four months ago the global economic drive train was seemingly unstoppable.
Four months ago our schedules were driving us to go go go.
In a matter of weeks this global train came to a sputtering stop.
Suddenly, our schedules mostly evaporated.
Without schedules to drive us, we are stuck with ourselves
Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Sounds like sesshin.
We’ve gotten to discover what is essential in our lives. Before there had not been time to even ask, “What is essential?”
To discover that “to sit and do nothing is better than wasting your time,” may be a new realization or a reconfirmation. We may discover that the time we spend doing nothing, meditating, is quite essential to our individual well-being. Actually doing nothing, taking time to do nothing, scheduling a time to do nothing, and then to specifically do nothing with one’s full awareness like one’s hair is on fire is the way. When we meditate in the calm within, this deep reservoir nurtures our aspiration and imagination and volition to then manifest skillfully. It takes practice, endless practice.
In Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, he writes,
#73
The stork, the cat and the thief,
By moving silently and carefully
Accomplish what they desire to do;
A Bodhisattva, too, should always behave in this way.
#108
The defining characteristic of guarding alertness,
In brief, is only this:
To examine again and again
The condition of my body and mind.
How do we move silently and carefully? When we learn to not move and learn to hear when we are not silent.
We can look at meditation as a science - we are scientists and the zendo is our lab. We investigate, we question, we doubt our assumptions and closely held views.
This practice allows us to explore our breathe and mind-body (bodhicitta), investigate our lives and ways of thinking, see some of the contexts in which we find ourselves, attune to the conditions that make this moment possible. The zendo is also a laboratory to practice continuous awareness with others.
The world has offered us this time to stop for a moment each day to reflect on our breathe, our being and well-being and others’ well-being, a time to reflect on our needs and needs of others. And get a chance, perhaps, to examine and explore, to laugh at or with, and weep for the self that we can never find. Enlightenment happens everywhere. The dynamo of zen practice (continuity of mindful awareness) increases the likelihood of the accident of enlightenment. When we sit zazen with others, we also support fertile conditioning for other beings to enlighten.
Jikojians are sheltering in place, each of us in different life-stages, with different perspectives, needs, drives and capabilities. Perhaps it is through awareness of our own internal harmonics and awareness of the tune or tone of others that we find ways to be together, to play and work harmoniously, through these months of staying local and low to the ground, finding many subtle lessons. When dealing with the natural harmony in community, in family, inside each of us, 'tis best to be gentle.
With gratitude,
Kaizan Doug Jacobson