Decluttering Mind

If I didn't learn anything else while at Autumn Sesshin at Choboji it was the reminder that I have can have a fairly cluttered mind. And though it may not be the conscious intent of the mind, the clutter creates many problems. Over the first 3 days, I was able to see that I was carrying stuff within my mind that happened when I was a kid. Stuff that quite frankly doesn't make sense to hold on to.

One really good example is when I was about 12 or 13, I was playing over at my fathers house. I was on the street with a new bike that my father had gotten me. I stopped playing and had been sitting down watching cars go by and was basically sitting there thinking. Some kids coming through our neighborhood had been walking through, saw me with my bike. One of the boys grabbed me from behind and another punched me in the stomach and face a bunch of times. And the end result was that my bike was stolen, as well as a piece of self-esteem, because I was unable to protect myself or my bike and the ability to trust others fully.

That was something that had been tucked away in my mind, that actually had an effect on me and I didn't remember it was there, until I was there on that black cushion. The funny thing is I have dozens and more honestly hundreds of those suckers just piled up. Personally I never thought of myself as a pack-rat, but there I was at Choboji, stuck in my own bear-trap. Nowhere to run and nowhere to hide (at least easily that is-anyone who does Zazen knows what I mean by that one).

These experiences helped to create endless waves of distraction and our mind becomes so divided, that we can become a shadow of our true self. That's no fun and rather life limiting. And this shadow of our true self is my current understanding of "living like a ghost." We are not fully alive. We are not our "True" self.

For me this is where having an authentic teacher and being engaged with a Sangha become invaluable. We have people that we practice Zen with. We can come to know and bounce things off of them. It's kind of like a surrogate family, with people making an effort to perhaps move in the same direction. In a mature Sangha there is a unified field of vision, that can help cut through the static and be very useful in decluttering our mind. While at Choboji, I found an amazing level of support whihc encouraged me forward, rather than staying stuck. This kind of help and support is essential.

The guidance we can get from a Roshi, Osho, Sensei, Teacher, Spiritual Adviser can be immense. As we declutter, they can help keep us from tricking ourselves, when we are attemping to hold on to things that are really of no value.

Finally the practice of Zazen (To sit in unification), is a powerful way to declutter and get rid of those cob-webs within our mind. Sit by sit, breath by breath, is the process that we can and do use it to take out the mental "trash," so to speak. As Genjo Osho and other teachers have reminded me along the way, "This is about Life and Death," and deserves our full effort, attention and mindfulness.

The end result is that we can be lighter, clearer, more open and alive. Indeed alive.

Gassho,

Jaye Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO