from Mushin
We can get so bogged down with the difficulties of being a human being, that it takes a while to understand the method in Zen practice. How it functions and helps us transform our view of what this life is. What is most important and how to allow this to function in a way that is more peaceful and beneficial. We begin with meditation, a kind of meditation without a goal, without a theme. A meditation that is so simple that we may think that it’s difficult. We’re used to difficult. Hobbling along the path of distractions, we’ve forgotten to notice what is right here. We may go for a long time without realizing that we just need to be present, in our body, our breath, sounds. When we can begin to appreciate each breath and how to thoroughly, minutely relax into just this, we reclaim our native mind. Putting everything down. This mind, this seclusion that we open to in zazen, is precious and real. Seclusion from the cacophony of thought, concepts, opinions, politics and of activity, allows space and time its actual place in our life. We open up to who we truly are right here. Our human difficulties are only a portion, a small portion, of the whole. Just breathing, just listening, we cease our involvement with the experience of difficulty, our identification with it. We can stop filling awareness with our habitual practice of misery. We can return to the heartmind of practice. Zazen is a touchstone, an embodiment of our completeness, right here and now. It’s a lifelong refuge. Always right here. To be used. To function. But we must take care of it, take care of ourselves and practice this zazen, in ordinary life circumstances, steadily.
