Choppy Waters of Life
Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 8:20AM
This week, I've run into quite a few people who've seemed to relate a narrative that they feel as though they are somehow not measuring up to who they've seen their life. It's as though they've assumed a posture that is self-deflating, rather than self-helping and self-encouraging, contorted rather than Upright. Being in their presence, though they don't always verbalize it, there's the sense that they are not just disappointed with their circumstance, but with themselves too.
When considering disappointment with oneself, I don't feel that's necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, if it spark or ignites a change in direction. The disappointment can actually be the motivation for change. But when we do nothing and just sit in it, perhaps wallow a little too long with it and are paralyzed, we need to look deeply and find a way as Shunryu Suzkui Roshi put it, "Resume" our True nature or Awakened Mind.
There there will always be disappointments with certain aspects of our life, this does not imply that we are the disappointment itself.
Some time ago, my teacher, Genjo Marinello Osho gave a Dharma teaching that I've been digesting, ever since he uttered the words, "We must learn to swim in choppy in choppy waters." These words from a "Master Swimmer" might seem simply, easy, nonchalant, but the truth is, everything about ourselves is 100% exposed by this so-called, "simple" sentence.
Sitting with this, I've noticed that life of it's own accord has choppy water. It's not a joke to say, it's a miracle that we are all alive. Despite the moments of naturally choppiness, there moments when with what might be described as overly self-involved, self-centered or egoistic mind set that I have taken choppy water and turned it into a tsunami. It's kind of comical that our mind has this capacity, but it's true.
The practice of Zen... Way of unifying Heart-mind, it to sit, sit, sit and stop stirring, stirring, stirring. No need to add to the choppiness whatsoever. Put in another way, there's no need to pour a tanker truck full of gasoline on a house fire.We can decide something other than self-defeating thinking and behavior.
The moment naturally choppy water appears in our life, we don't have to take it personal, as though it was some indicator of something that's defective about ourselves. When I stop taking the choppiness personally, my anxiety, anger and sense of disappointment drops. I can then treed-water. When I learn to harmonize with the waves, just a little, then I can start paddling. Becoming the waves itself, then it's all surfing and the choppiness seems to dissolve, even if just for a few minutes and we realize we are okay. No hands required.
In the moments of our day, I'm hoping that we are learning enough, to swim with the choppy moments. It wouldn't make sense not to do so, after all we are each very capable Buddha's or at least I'd like to feel so.
Yours In Zen,
Jaye Seiho Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO
Reader Comments (2)
Agree with you Seiho. All of that gets solved by living in the moment, not the past, not the future, and realizing impermanence, and nonselfness. Mindfully.
mu!