Miracle is a strong word, but there is an aspect to zazen that really is miraculous to me. It is how, sometimes, suddenly, everything is new again. It is easy with a busy life for a mental scenario to build up that stains everything. People and places become stained with certain qualities, he is like this, she is like that. I live in a situation with its themes and soundtrack. It is very much a dream. This dream doesn't always get dispelled by zazen. I can be drunk on a story for some time, spiraling into suffering....and even the "good" stories where things are "going my way" turn on that spiral. Yet, sometimes in the simple act of sitting, the "world" is dispelled, literally dis-spelled. The thoughts and feelings no longer hold the mind. The senses are fresh and immediate without a veil of dream, and it follows that action is also open. When this mind is bright and open, and I have a meeting of minds with another person, he/she mirrors this and is also open. It is something I've experienced so many times, even with "problem" relationships. There is reason for faith we can open enough to heal the world.
The thing is, there does not seem to be a one time opening. Stories are the brain's function and we need them, but they are sticky and residue builds up all the time. I need to sit every day and even that is no guarantee. Sometimes a story needs to wear itself out. Zazen provides the space where that can happen, so if sitting is a grind one morning, a grind it will be.
When first learning a form of zazen, a senior student at the temple told me it was like brushing one's teeth. Every day gunk builds up and every day you need to brush. That seemed like such a boring description at the time, no big bang, but it turned out to be true in my experience.
Just talking nonsense. Please take with a grain of salt.
Gassho
Daizan
sat today
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Originally Posted by Daizan
