THE MARROW OF ZEN: ‘Actually the best way to relieve your mental suffering is to sit in zazen, even in such a confused state of mind and bad posture. If you have no experience of sitting in this kind of difficult situation you are not a Zen student. No other activity will appease your suffering. In other restless positions you have no power to accept your difficulties, but in the zazen posture which you have acquired by long, hard practice, your mind and body have great power to accept things as they are, whether they are agreeable or disagreeable.’ Zen Mind p40
I am getting a sense of how zazen practice builds our ability to accept the agreeable and the disagreeable with equanimity.
That is really good stuff.
Having become a little tired and stretched and stressed from overworking recently, I’ve lost some of my spring. My mind is slightly leaning into disagreeable ‘bias’ – seeing the negative or not appreciating the positive fully.
I wonder this: if I had one hundred days left, what would make them most agreeable to me. Can I picture, visualise, gift myself 100 happy days? Or is that not in the spirit of equanimity? I just feel it would be good to direct my attention to the upwards flow.
Lovely. Directing your attention to the upwards flow is perfect. Yes. We highly recommend this. You have the power of immense imagination and outmanifesting of all goodness and joy … right at hand. Your zazen practice, your meditation, is your key to the doorway of your joy and the release of resistance.
Ah, resistance. Abraham talks about that a lot… Am I in a resistant state, when I’m wound up? How to unwind… on a definitive basis…?
Practice. Zazen. Qigong. Walking. Exhale – exhale – exhale… Let your days be fulllll of exhale. Minimise tautness – let it not intrude. Let your inhale be light, conscious, free, and brief…
Yesterday, a day of training. It’s a big gulp of an inhale… Though sharing the training with another person sure helps…
What makes you go ‘aaahhhh’?
Helping people with CR. Not training.
***Zazen5mins***
Arising: “Stop holding your breath”
Both: ‘literally’ (gripping, not giving myself the full relaxing exhale) but also in terms of ‘waiting’ (as in ‘I wouldn’t hold your breath). What are you waiting for? This is it. This is you at the top of your powers.
Breathe out and flow upwards. Let it go. Breathe it out. This is it. It is now. Breathe it all out, the agreeable and the disagreeable, with full acceptance, with full equanimity. Breathe it out.
Breathe it out.