Reconciliation

When I've heard the word "Reconciliation," my mental image is two people or groups with problems either present or past and are attempting to work things out. A common definition is "The reestablishment of friendly relations." That's how most of us understand it. But then again there is another way the word "Reconciliation" can be turned.

I don't know about you, but I have very different edges within myself. It's like a broken plate and the pieces don't seem to fit [back together], though at one time they where a single plate. One side seems clear, happy, open and compassionate and the other a polar opposite of these traits. One moment I can totally happy with you and in the next moment disappointed and not even want to talk with you. I can just retreat and isolate. If feels very similar to "Jekyll and Hyde."

It used to be painful for me to admit this, but over the years something has changed. Where I once thought that my responsibility to myself was to smooth out those rough edges, so that they fit together "the right way," I've noticed something else. The process of reconciliation.

Each time I sit in Zazen, it seems like an effort at reconciliation with myself. Sometimes it feels like it's going well. I feel like a sword, cutting though air. Nothing can seem to stop me. Other times I sit there and fall asleep or fall in mental quick-sand. During Autumn Sesshin at Choboji, I had a particular day where I felt really, really, really discouraged. No matter what I did, I could not keep myself awake. My posture slouched, I'd slip off in to sleep, wake-up a few minutes later, angry with myself, because I was "capable of so much better." Moments later, I'd fall asleep again, feeling like not only did I let myself down, but others as well.

That day, Genjo Marinello Osho said something that helped me pick me up out of "mental quicksand." He said something to the effect of, "there are times when it seems like nothing is happening. As a matter of fact, it may look and feel like you are failing, but the truth is something powerful is still happening," it just didn't meet my personal definition of what I "thought" was supposed to be happening. It was simply another moment in process of reconciliation with myself. It really wasn't "bad," but it wasn't "good," either. The only thing that mattered was not giving up, not walking away from the zafu.

If we don't give up [on ourselves] and sit and sit and sit, we will slowly but surely come to a reconciliation with ourselves. The edges won't merge, they will disappear. At some point we will begin discover some things that we are no longer divided about. We may feel a little amazed, because we are not carrying that excess baggage. We can truly experience, "One-pointed undivided stabilized Mind," rather than a mind that is divided against itself.

Jaye Morris, Curator
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