Out of the Ruts

Since I've been back from Choboji, a lot of interesting things have been bubbling to the surface. One such item is that by going to Sesshin (translation: To gather the Mind), I was able to get outside of a rut that I hadn't recognized that I had worn myself into. I think we generally call it a "routine."

In one sense routines can prove useful. I myself like consistency. I guess there's a certain security in that. You don't have to guess what is going to happen. But then again, if we become so attached to a routine that we cannot see outside the box or find it difficult to be spontaneous, that can be a huge problem. It would be akin to being a machine and allowing the vibrance within to wither. We can end up missing out on a lot of things.

One example is every evening at Choboji, we chanted something called the "Tei Dai Denpo." This is ewhat we call a Rinzai Dharma lineage. It goes all the way back to Shakyamuni Buddha and even those before him. This is traditional and I was very used to doing it from the time I was living at Dai Bosatsu Zendo. But one night, when we entered the Zendo, there was a sheet of paper laying on our meditation cushions. It was the names of all the known female Dharma lineage holders. I was shocked. I'd never seen that done and moreover, I never considered the female Dharma lineage. It was like having blinders removed and seeing a much larger world. In other words, I was lifted out of a kind of rut I had fallen into in how I thought about the Tei Dai Denpo.

The ruts that we can potentially fall into and live in are many. If we can somehow find a way to extract ourselves from just a few, we can potentially see ourselves and live our lives in a very different way. There is a wider world for us.

So how do you get out of a rut? Simple. Just break the routine or pattern we're in. When driving home, we could take a different path, even if it's longer. Instead of just coming home and making dinner and turning on the TV, we can take a walk around the neighborhood and get some exercise and spend time with ourselves, family, friends or the kids. Instead of doing Zazen in the evening, we could do it in the morning.

There are many, many patterns that we could change in our lives. We just have to make a conscious effort to change them. And as we help ourselves by climbing out of the rut, we have an opportunity to learn something about ourselves, others and the larger world. When we get out of the ruts, we never know what you might discover that causes us to think, feel or understand differently than we did yesterday. And that is kinda cool.

May Your Life Go Well,

Jaye Morris, Curator
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