The big thing in my practice throughout the years, Is utter and total imbalance. An energetic nothing. Energy wasted on thinking. The urge to do what I'm thinking.
Sitting there thinking about maybe for example: making pancakes for breakfast. So what do I do? Make pancakes. Sounds fine right, but not necessarily practice. Maybe it is something I should keep. Not sure right now. Don't care.
Notice how you might always be thinking of something else. Doing this or doing that. Zen is definitely balance. Dropping such notions. Most of the time they are petty anyway.
I recorded a song last night. What does that mean? That was last night. Life goes on. This is today. Right now. As I think about the song that I recorded last night, I neglect would I should be doing now.
Dogen Zenji says:
This is a balanced practice that sets the body and mind right.
It's not about thinking about practice, it's dropping. Dropping the tension, thoughts, neediness, wanting to get better. Wanting to change your life around. It's dropping all that. It sounds strange right? But, really there is a lot of stuff, or ways that we act, that we can do without.
The posture is important because when we lean our slouch, it makes our body very uncomfortable. However, we will keep doing that until we get a Zenny smack up side the head.
Of course, I could be all wrong and posture is not important, but I don't think so. I mean, it's balanced. Maybe, we notice tension and whatnot and bring that outside of our sitting and various other postures, but we can't hold them for long. Well, we could, but with painful effects.
Your average ordinary everyday Joe. But even more ordinary than that.
Have a good day.
W
