If Nothing Changes....

"If nothing changes, nothing changes." I think about that sometimes, because it's so very true. On top of that, people usually change from pain, not when things are going so-called "right."

Change can often be a difficult process. It usually involves moving away from things that are very familiar (more often than not dysfunctional in their own way) and, taking what appears to be a "risk" of some sort. We also have the weight or habit and patterns behind us that have their own kind of momentum.

Whenever "risk," is involved you also need to have "courage, logic and determination," in there somewhere. This can help drive and guide our positive/healthy actions, which will produce the change that we are aiming for. We also have to be prepared to ask ourselves a motivating question. "what is the personal cost to ourselves, if we don't change?"

Sitting on a zafu (meditation cushion), for any period of time can have a certain clarifying effect (if we allow it). We gain a window of opportunity to see things in ourselves and our life that we may have been avoiding. Just as a side note, I find it terribly odd that we can have trouble looking ourselves in the eye on certain issues, let alone other people.

I find that there is another benefit to practicing Zazen. Over time, we have the ability to see targets more clearly. It's like something that is a thousand feet away from us, looks like it's five inches away from us. Put another way, through Zazen it can become very easy to see the path that we need to take, in order to help ourselves and others. Then the only thing that's left is just following the path (e.g. courage and determination as I mentioned before).

So yes, "if nothing changes, nothing changes." I'd rather spend my time being the person that I really want to be. It's far better than looking back and regretting that I was not the person that I could have been, because I didn't make the changes that I needed too. People who live like that are nothing more than "ghosts."

Gassho,

Jaye Morris, Curator
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