Recognizing the Influences

Yesterday, I happened into an intriguing response, by mentioning a thought one of my friends had made about Tiger Woods. The gist was my friend Sean had said, "Maybe on of the factors in his acting out is the he has unresolved grief from his fathers death." When he said it, a kind of shift occurred and my mind said, "Never thought of that one," and a small shift and opening occurred. could see another side and angle.

The response by some to my "tweeting," that point was interesting. The theme became, "there can be no excuses." The emotionality of some of the responses took my by surprise. My own response was, I can agree to that, but then countered with, "Can there be influences?" That point for me is very important, because in my experience, there are things in both the foreground and background that are influencing thoughts, feelings, decisions and reactions. My sense is that to ignore and deny influences can be a very unskillful way to take care of ourselves.

Zen is not psychotherapy. But there are certain times and moments it can and does mimic it and there's nothing wrong with that. There are things… influences… that can and do bubble up to the surface, as we sit, working and practicing to unify our heart-mind. The things that bubble up are sometimes fragments or memories…. experiences… feelings… projections of mind… that are what I might define as "The unresolved," influences.

There are many times that I regard "The unresolved," influences as a nuisance…. a negative… unhelpful… and despite this, they show me where I have sticky fingers or I'm clinging to something like duct tape. Instead of batting those fragments… memories… feelings… projections aside, in my zazen, I sometimes turn to face them on the black cushion. Instead of running from the tiger, fearing being eaten, it can in certain moments be better to change roles and hunt those influences back and dissolve them.

Though the process of Zazen and learning to tame and settle the mind, I've "Unlearned," some things that had powerful influences on my life and mind. From one position it's coming to terms with what Rinzai Gigen Zenji called the "Dis-ease of the mind." The influences that keep up anchored and chained to our past, that involves negative emotions and experiences.

In my experience with my teacher, Genjo Marinello Osho, he's demonstrated to me there is nothing wrong with facing these influences. He simply teaches me to turn them in ways that I can more effectively… readily… pierce and in paraphrased words, "reabsorb and reclaim the energy that I used to sustain the influences power within my life."

In closing, know that working with and "Recognizing the influences" is not an effort to excuse so-called "bad behavior." Working in and around our influences is about nurturing… pruning… befriending… composting… combusting... ceasing to be deluded by ghosts that perhaps without our know have been haunting and limiting our ability to fully experience our life.

Yours In Zen,

Jaye Seiho Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO

Comments

[Cheri L]

Thank you, Seiho. I appreciate what you said here. For me, it's about watching my own mind, seeing what comes up, gaining insight into the causes of my own thoughts, feelings, impulses. We can turn this same kind of attention towards others, and see that they too deal with the past and karma and make choices depending on how caught they are. Holding this understanding about causes and "influences" and how they affect all of us leads to compassion, for ourselves and for others (even celebrities and politicians!) Compassion isn't about excusing someone's harmful behavior, it is a path to a deep understanding of who we are, ALL of us.