The Zen Master's Dance - 4 - Fukan Zazengi (to p. 23)

[Jundo]

I am not sure this is exactly what the exercise calls for. Also for brevity I have left out some details but you will get the gist of my story.


At the time of my 50th birthday I went through an intense roller coaster of emotions in the span of a few days.

My wife put a lot of effort into making my 50th birthday special. We had a great day with a lot of nice surprises. My family came over for a lovely meal my wife had made then we all went to my son’s school to watch a play that his class had written and performed. The class had spent most of the term preparing the script, the scenes, and the costumes. The play included music my son composed specifically for the play. It was a fantastic day.

Next day my wife went in for some scheduled surgery. While I was sitting in the waiting room waiting for her to wake up I got a call from my manager informing me that I was one of a group of people being laid off from work. This was strictly a bean counter decision as I had been working my butt off for years and was leading several key projects. Devastated I had to hide my news and emotions from my wife for several hours as I focused on her and her recovery. I finally told her that evening.

The day following the surgery we were back in the hospital. My wife had got an infection due to the surgery and needed to spend two days in the hospital for several round of antibiotics. She was a lot of pain. Meanwhile my son was celebrating what is considered to be one of the highlights of his school where their play is performed 3 times a day for a week. To not spoil his experience we had decided to not tell him about the loss of my job or my wife’s surgery but I could not conceal her being in the hospital. My wife and I missed the last two performances.

Finally once my wife was home we had to confront the reality that I had lost my job and because I was (and am) the sole wage earner in the house we needed to make significant adjustments to our lifestyle until I was able to find more work. I finally did four months later.

During all of this I sat daily with all the elation, joy, concerns, and stresses. I did manage to find some degree of equanimity through it all. In fact it was this series of events helped solidify for me the value of this practice. It was in the Fall of that year that I fully committed to this path and undertook Jukai.



Tairin
Sat today and lah

Oh my, there are times like this in life! It is at those hardest of times that we can find the true value of this practice.

I would just say that there is that perspective where all of this life is like a show with scripts and costumes. In this show, sickness and health, win and lose appear. Yet there is also this view in which there is no sickness nor health, no being in hospital nor ever not being in hospital, no jobs to gain or lose for nothing lacking, nothing possible to miss for failure to attend. That is so even in a world where we must sometimes sit fearful in hospital waiting rooms, and wake up with the cold sweats worried how the rent will be paid.

I am so glad that you could sit "with all the elation, joy, concerns, and stresses [finding] some degree of equanimity through it all."

Gassho, J

STLah

[Amelia]

Several years ago, our only car broke down about a week after moving into a new apartment. We were completely broke after the rent and deposits. We both needed that car to get to work and we lived too far away from family or friends to ask for a ride. Uber wasn't really an option back then. The amount of stress I felt was intense, but as we were going through the motions of getting it towed, finding a mechanic, calling family for financial help, organizing a generous ride from my father-in-law for a few days, etc., I also felt this great relief at the fact that everything I was doing was the only thing I could be doing about it. There was nothing to be done other than trying to fix the situation, step by step. When I realized that, the situation was still crappy but the stress was gone. Why stress when I've done all I could think of? Even if it didn't work out, I'd tried my best.

Gassho
Sat, lah

[Jundo]

Several years ago, our only car broke down about a week after moving into a new apartment. We were completely broke after the rent and deposits. We both needed that car to get to work and we lived too far away from family or friends to ask for a ride. Uber wasn't really an option back then. The amount of stress I felt was intense, but as we were going through the motions of getting it towed, finding a mechanic, calling family for financial help, organizing a generous ride from my father-in-law for a few days, etc., I also felt this great relief at the fact that everything I was doing was the only thing I could be doing about it. There was nothing to be done other than trying to fix the situation, step by step. When I realized that, the situation was still crappy but the stress was gone. Why stress when I've done all I could think of? Even if it didn't work out, I'd tried my best.

Gassho
Sat, lah

That is the power of this practice!

And also, one knows that there is nothing to break down, nothing to repair, that there is no debt to be paid, no place to go so no need for a car, no place to be towed! All that, in a world with broken cars, bills to pay, mechanics to find and begging family for cash.



Gassho, J

STLah

[Kiri]

I don't have anything big to share with you this time. Until relatively recently, when a negative emotion was rising I was consumed by it. Worst than that, I wasn't recognizing or accepting it even if it was affecting me physically (sweating, nausea, headache). For example, during the exam period I couldn't accept that I was stressed for the things I had to study. Or right before a particularly difficult exam I was denying the fear of failing in yet another course. And that fear would block me from thinking clearly...
Hopefully I left these times behind. Since then I worked with a therapist for some time and I learned how to understanding these feelings and how to see them for what they are. When I was accepted at the university for the second time, my approach toward exams has changed. Yes, I am still worried or stressed about them, but it's ok. Now, before or after I have finished the exam, I can say "whatever happens from now on, I know that I did my best". Even if I have doubts for a particular exercise or I am dissatisfied on how I approached something, I know deep inside that it's ok.

I wish I could say that I can accept failure with the same equanimity. I can't. After repeated failures in the past, I now enjoy the success I get. I am sure that in the future there will be more cycles of fails and success. That's fine. I only hope that I get to enjoy (academic) success for a while longer.

Gassho, Nikolas
Sat/Lah

[Jundo]

I don't have anything big to share with you this time. Until relatively recently, when a negative emotion was rising I was consumed by it. Worst than that, I wasn't recognizing or accepting it even if it was affecting me physically (sweating, nausea, headache). For example, during the exam period I couldn't accept that I was stressed for the things I had to study. Or right before a particularly difficult exam I was denying the fear of failing in yet another course. And that fear would block me from thinking clearly...
Hopefully I left these times behind. Since then I worked with a therapist for some time and I learned how to understanding these feelings and how to see them for what they are. When I was accepted at the university for the second time, my approach toward exams has changed. Yes, I am still worried or stressed about them, but it's ok. Now, before or after I have finished the exam, I can say "whatever happens from now on, I know that I did my best". Even if I have doubts for a particular exercise or I am dissatisfied on how I approached something, I know deep inside that it's ok.

I wish I could say that I can accept failure with the same equanimity. I can't. After repeated failures in the past, I now enjoy the success I get. I am sure that in the future there will be more cycles of fails and success. That's fine. I only hope that I get to enjoy (academic) success for a while longer.

Gassho, Nikolas
Sat/Lah

Lovely. Keep going.

But what I am talking of is this: In Emptiness, which is Wholeness Flowing, there is no exam, no grades, nothing in need of therapy, no "my best" or "my worst" or any "my" to do, nothing to doubt. It is the Big O "Ok" of the universe! There are no fails and no cycles of success, for one must judge the Wholeness which we are as already automatically successful at being wholly the Wholeness. It gets an A+ in Flowing!

This is so even as there are exams and grades, personal issues requiring therapy, best and worst and in between pass/fail, success and failure, even sometimes sweating, nausea and headaches.

All True At Once, As One.

Gassho, J

STLah

[DanM]

Earlier this year 2 of my friends died within 2 weeks of each other. The first took his own life, which came as an incredible shock to me, and the 2nd died after a long battle with cancer and his death was expected for some time. I hadn’t had any significant conversations with either of them for a long time, but there was a time when I was very close to both of them and I was very upset about their passing. With the friend who died of cancer, it was much easier to reconcile my feelings with his passing, he was no longer in pain, I’d had a chance to say good bye, his loved ones were around him when it happened, etc. I found, and continue to find, it much harder to accept my other friend’s suicide. He left behind a very young daughter who will now grow up without a father.

I nonetheless feel a very deep sense of gratitude for having been friends with them. Each came in to my life at a time when I had my own troubles and both were incredibly supportive and were a huge influence on me. I had a very real sense of interdependence and interconnectedness when they passed and I took some comfort in that. That barrier between myself and them was far less distinct than it could ever have been before finding this practice. I can see a connection between that and death being a part of the flow of things coming and going. However, I can’t say that I have made the leap from there to truly appreciating the “emptiness” in this situation, or being fully able to “let go”. I understand it intellectually but I haven’t yet felt the calmness, acceptance and lack of fear that Jundo speaks of in this chapter in my bones.

Gassho,
Dan
ST/LAH

[Jundo]

Earlier this year 2 of my friends died within 2 weeks of each other. The first took his own life, which came as an incredible shock to me, and the 2nd died after a long battle with cancer and his death was expected for some time. I hadn’t had any significant conversations with either of them for a long time, but there was a time when I was very close to both of them and I was very upset about their passing. With the friend who died of cancer, it was much easier to reconcile my feelings with his passing, he was no longer in pain, I’d had a chance to say good bye, his loved ones were around him when it happened, etc. I found, and continue to find, it much harder to accept my other friend’s suicide. He left behind a very young daughter who will now grow up without a father.

I nonetheless feel a very deep sense of gratitude for having been friends with them. Each came in to my life at a time when I had my own troubles and both were incredibly supportive and were a huge influence on me. I had a very real sense of interdependence and interconnectedness when they passed and I took some comfort in that. That barrier between myself and them was far less distinct than it could ever have been before finding this practice. I can see a connection between that and death being a part of the flow of things coming and going. However, I can’t say that I have made the leap from there to truly appreciating the “emptiness” in this situation, or being fully able to “let go”. I understand it intellectually but I haven’t yet felt the calmness, acceptance and lack of fear that Jundo speaks of in this chapter in my bones.

Gassho,
Dan
ST/LAH

Yes, it sounds very strange, but we do not believe in death (birth either), any more than a wave appears to rise and fall on the sea, but the sea is just the flowing sea that does not lose a drop.

That is so, even as there is birth and death in this world, and we sometimes grieve. We are waves that miss other waves, but we can also know ourselves as the sea.

I will dedicate Zazen tonight to your friends.

Gassho, J

STLah

[DanM]

Yes, it sounds very strange, but we do not believe in death (birth either), any more than a wave appears to rise and fall on the sea, but the sea is just the flowing sea that does not lose a drop.

That is so, even as there is birth and death in this world, and we sometimes grieve. We are waves that miss other waves, but we can also know ourselves as the sea.

I will dedicate Zazen tonight to your friends.

Gassho, J

STLah

Thank you Jundo, especially for expressing it in terms that very much appeal to a surfer’s sensibilities

I increasingly understand things in this way, but at the moment that understanding seems mostly intellectual, rather than understood intuitively. I will continue to sit...

Gassho,
Dan
ST/LAH

[Kaisui]

I don't know if I have an example of experiencing full equanimity at the same time as intense negative emotion, but since practicing there are certainly moments of equanimity that shine through and counterbalance such emotion, when in the past I may have been more carried away by it, and these I think are increasing.

It is common for me to stress about work or study, and to dread upcoming work or meetings because I feel I am behind in my work and I have to face up to people about it.

I have written the below to express the more extreme end of this worry countered with the highest points of equanimity, even if in reality these moment may be more fleeting than I am expressing here.

I stress about my work. I think, I haven't done enough. I haven't spent enough time. I have allowed too many interruptions and now I am behind. When I think about the next task, I feel uneasy, I don't want to face it, because I am too far behind. When a meeting is coming up, I am afraid to face my co-workers, who may ask about where I'm at.
But then alongside this, I am aware that there is no separate me from those co-workers, we are all aspects of the same. There is no incomplete work that is separate from completed work. If work gets done that is the world as it is, and if work doesn't get done that is also the world as it is. Sitting in equanimity, I see life as it is beyond my worries, things just as they are, beneath each flawed idea built onto flawed idea, beyond distorted representations that are in fact only one way of looking at things among countless others.

Gassho,
Charity
sat/lah

[Jundo]

Thank you Jundo, especially for expressing it in terms that very much appeal to a surfer’s sensibilities

I increasingly understand things in this way, but at the moment that understanding seems mostly intellectual, rather than understood intuitively. I will continue to sit...

Gassho,
Dan
ST/LAH

Yes, one has to experience it (i.e., Zazen!) It is like the difference between explaining or reading a book about "surfing" and actually managing to get up on a surfboard, riding a wave (something I only --barely-- managed for seconds during my brief surfing career at age 14 in Ft. Lauderdale, only I did enjoy sitting on the beach with my board looking cool ... until I actually had to head out. )

Wave is surfing the surfer as surfer is surfing the wave ... in fact, wave and surfer are just the surfing ... Imagine your most "wave and surfer are one" moments on the board, Dan, and you may have a taste. Then, surfing includes both the getting up in the morning, paddling out, getting up, wiping out, going home ... lost friends ... nothing left out ...

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

I stress about my work. I think, I haven't done enough. I haven't spent enough time. I have allowed too many interruptions and now I am behind. When I think about the next task, I feel uneasy, I don't want to face it, because I am too far behind. When a meeting is coming up, I am afraid to face my co-workers, who may ask about where I'm at.
But then alongside this, I am aware that there is no separate me from those co-workers, we are all aspects of the same. There is no incomplete work that is separate from completed work. If work gets done that is the world as it is, and if work doesn't get done that is also the world as it is. Sitting in equanimity, I see life as it is beyond my worries, things just as they are, beneath each flawed idea built onto flawed idea, beyond distorted representations that are in fact only one way of looking at things among countless others.

Gassho,
Charity
sat/lah

Nothing to work, no worker, nothing to do, no time, no chance for interruptions for nobody and no time to interrupt, no ahead or behind nor right on schedule, no complete or incomplete (the universe is always completely on its universal schedule!)

All that while, simultaneously, there is work to get done, things to do by workers, interruptions, time is money, falling behind and stuff that is never complete.

Gassho, J

STLah

[DanM]

Yes, one has to experience it (i.e., Zazen!) It is like the difference between explaining or reading a book about "surfing" and actually managing to get up on a surfboard, riding a wave (something I only --barely-- managed for seconds during my brief surfing career at age 14 in Ft. Lauderdale, only I did enjoy sitting on the beach with my board looking cool ... until I actually had to head out. )

Wave is surfing the surfer as surfer is surfing the wave ... in fact, wave and surfer are just the surfing ... Imagine your most "wave and surfer are one" moments on the board, Dan, and you may have a taste. Then, surfing includes both the getting up in the morning, paddling out, getting up, wiping out, going home ... lost friends ... nothing left out ...

Gassho, J

STLah

Thanks again Jundo! And yes, surfing is actually the perfect example of when I have had the most intense feelings of oneness, so this is very helpful.

Gassho,
Dan
ST

[Kaisui]

Nothing to work, no worker, nothing to do, no time, no chance for interruptions for nobody and no time to interrupt, no ahead or behind nor right on schedule, no complete or incomplete (the universe is always completely on its universal schedule!)

All that while, simultaneously, there is work to get done, things to do by workers, interruptions, time is money, falling behind and stuff that is never complete.

Thank you, Jundo. I will keep working on the work that is nothing to do, alert to the interruptions that are interrupting nothing, and the work will never be complete nor incomplete.

Gassho,
Charity
sat/lah

[Jundo]

Thank you, Jundo. I will keep working on the work that is nothing to do, alert to the interruptions that are interrupting nothing, and the work will never be complete nor incomplete.

Gassho,
Charity
sat/lah

[Risho]

I know I'm late, and I'm catching up. When my parents recently moved to Tampa, the first emotion that came to me was how old they looked. In my mind, they were still the parents of my youth; I'm sure I'm still their little child to some extent. Very early on, it became an overwhelming situation. I was overwhelmed with anger toward them; I was overwhelmed with my own mortality; I was overwhelmed with sorrow for them and stress and worry. They moved here without a plan, on a whim. There is a lot of other stuff going on as well with my Dad's health.

I have never felt more helpless. Then something interesting happened; I literally dropped my expectations. I dropped it -and made myself face how they are, who they are, not who I want them to be. I also realized they need my help.

So that has become my 2nd job Initially my mom was very distraught and stressed moving here - I mean my parents are in their mid-70's so up and moving is just an incredible change. So I decided to see things from their perspective; I also realized that if they had waited for a fully fleshed out plan that it may have delayed things; having them here was the first priority, and so I think my mom was right all along.

They also got to meet their grandson, and we will be having thanksgiving dinner for the first time in 17 years; we normally visit them on christmas only; I'm an only child, and this has been a deep pain in me for so long. I cannot explain how much of a miracle and blessing it is that they are here - a literal blessing that I get to help them.

So I had to step it up and really just accept it so I could move forward. When they first came here, she was breaking down almost daily. But with patience and love, she has started healing. I think that despite not having a plan, the fact that they moved here was huge. Also I've started healing a lot.

Feeling that overwhelm was like a huge wave of stress and anxiety, but dropping it and focusing on the good little things every day and what we could do to actually move forward was huge.

We only get a small amount of time here - it's helped me put into perspective what is really important in my life. I just had to let go all of the attachment to the past.

What a miracle this life is!

Gassho

Risho
-stlah