For a few weeks I have meant to ask Treeleaf's opinion about a recurring reflective thought: that I do not have (granted, my self-imagined) characteristics of committed zen practitioners (elan, frequent laughter, sense of lightness). I think I read somewhere once that many experienced folks laugh all of the time. I also read something once about a person feeling light all of the time, like they literally floated from place to place.

Thanks to lots of your comments and to Jundo and Taigu's video tutorials, I realize that these ideas of how zen should be can cause suffering. There are times when I catch this and there are times when I don't. But that's like shikantaza.

Have you ever experienced a sticky thought pattern like this? How did it change over time for you? Are there other ways to look at or consider it?

I have been sitting daily for about eight months, but I still feel pretty naive about what I'm doing.

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