Anger after zazen

[Ryudo]

Thank you.

Gassho
Marcus
SatToday/LAH

[Byokan]

Hi Kliff,

I've had this happen, too, of course (also - hello. I'm Alan. We recently had a baby, and I haven't been on this forum too often). What I realized I was doing was this: I was sitting and then I wasn't. It's not that I was "returning" to samsara, it's that I was ending practice, cutting it off, rather than bringing it off the cushion. In other words, I was practicing for myself. I was, as Dogen says, "conveying myself toward all things" in order to get peaceful and enlightened and know reality. Zazen was pleasant, quiet time I enjoyed, a place for me and my understanding, and when I got up, I had to do stuff, dammit, and deal with people, etc, when I'm trying to get calm and enlightened here! When I recognized this over time, my annoyance at the world was because I wasn't allowing the myriad things to come and carry out practice-enlightenment through the self. I was making my practice about myself, rather than practicing for and with and as all beings.

I hope this helps some.

Gassho,
Alan
sat today

Golden. Thank you Alan.

Gassho
Byōkan
sat today

p.s. Congratulations on your new little Buddha!

[Meian]

I just spoke to my supervisor this morning ..... she cleared me to visit my patient in the hospital. Officially they discourage this, but they understand what we go through.

Grateful for my sangha and a compassionate supervisor.

Gassho
Kim sat today

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

I do not believe that this Practice needs to turn us into emotional robots. Many folks are pretty good in an emergency, and it hits them after.

Sometimes we just need to find a mountain top and yell ... and sometimes sit in a car with the Sex Pistols blasting ...

Sometimes we just laugh it off ... sometimes we need a good cry ...

... and then we sit Zazen, letting stormy days just be stormy. Follow the breath, sit in a balanced posture and let the wind blow inside. Know in your heart that, behind the darkest storms, the sun still shines though temporarily hidden. Know in one's bones that all is just passing "mind theatre", today's emotional show for the moment. Know in one's toes that rainy days are just rainy, sunny days are sunny, stormy days storm ... the sky is ever clear, open, bright and boundless.

Repeat as needed.

Gassho, J

SatToday (in a mental drizzle)

Yes!

Gassho
Shingen

s@today

[Meian]

Jakuden and Jundo, thank you both. Yes. Much appreciated ♡

Gassho
Kim
Sat today

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

[Jundo]

I was deployed on an emergency today with work, on what is considered a "bad call" with a family situation and an accident that landed my patient in the hospital.

Without details and short version, i was fine during the incident and handled everything as usual, no problem, dispatch, fire, medics, etc. After it was finished and i headed home, I fell apart in the car - from what my father calls a "perfect storm" of events. I wanted to put Insight on but couldn't. I got home and just sat in the car, overwhelmed. I had a cd blasting in the stereo to drown out my emotions. I sat there like that for about 30 minutes, letting out so much anger and grief over this family, until i was calm enough to go in my house.

I'm hoping to zazen before sleep tonight, but this call is so fresh in my mind, I'm still processing everything that happened. I don't know if that is good, and still zazen and just let it flow, grief, anger and all? Or wait until i process the really ugly side of my work and get the mud out.

I think i should zazen and let 'whatever' happen. This is my life.

I had a thought earlier that i need Buddhism to be able to handle even the worst parts of what I deal with (including in my job) if it and I will be lifelong companions. I think Buddhism can handle anything.

Gassho
Kim
Sat today

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

I do not believe that this Practice needs to turn us into emotional robots. Many folks are pretty good in an emergency, and it hits them after.

Sometimes we just need to find a mountain top and yell ... and sometimes sit in a car with the Sex Pistols blasting ...

Sometimes we just laugh it off ... sometimes we need a good cry ...

... and then we sit Zazen, letting stormy days just be stormy. Follow the breath, sit in a balanced posture and let the wind blow inside. Know in your heart that, behind the darkest storms, the sun still shines though temporarily hidden. Know in one's bones that all is just passing "mind theatre", today's emotional show for the moment. Know in one's toes that rainy days are just rainy, sunny days are sunny, stormy days storm ... the sky is ever clear, open, bright and boundless.

Repeat as needed.

Gassho, J

SatToday (in a mental drizzle)

[Jakuden]

Dearest Kim,
All any of us can do is just sit with what comes up. Be with the grief and anger but do not narrate, play scenes of it over, or ruminate about it. Going through it one time today was plenty. Now you are safe and sitting with your Sangha, across all space and time. There is no job, no best or worst, nothing to handle, just the "suchness" of this moment. You can do it!
Gassho,
Jakuden
SatToday


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Meian]

I was deployed on an emergency today with work, on what is considered a "bad call" with a family situation and an accident that landed my patient in the hospital.

Without details and short version, i was fine during the incident and handled everything as usual, no problem, dispatch, fire, medics, etc. After it was finished and i headed home, I fell apart in the car - from what my father calls a "perfect storm" of events. I wanted to put Insight on but couldn't. I got home and just sat in the car, overwhelmed. I had a cd blasting in the stereo to drown out my emotions. I sat there like that for about 30 minutes, letting out so much anger and grief over this family, until i was calm enough to go in my house.

I'm hoping to zazen before sleep tonight, but this call is so fresh in my mind, I'm still processing everything that happened. I don't know if that is good, and still zazen and just let it flow, grief, anger and all? Or wait until i process the really ugly side of my work and get the mud out.

I think i should zazen and let 'whatever' happen. This is my life.

I had a thought earlier that i need Buddhism to be able to handle even the worst parts of what I deal with (including in my job) if it and I will be lifelong companions. I think Buddhism can handle anything.

Gassho
Kim
Sat today

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

[Rich]

If I felt anger after zazen, I would pound a pillow until it was all gone 😣
🙏
Sat today

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[Hoko]

I just listened to a recent talk by Michael Yukon Grody, on ZMM's podcasts, called "reacting and responding." In the very beginning he describes how he has sat sesshin for half his life now, and how there is that deep settled feeling at the end of sesshin, after the long period of silence and meditation... then he says after it is ended, a person might come up and say ONE WORD to him and he's already "deep in the sh*t."

Gassho,
Jakuden
SatToday

HA! I just listened to that one on the road to Oregon.
I thought that was a pretty slick observation.

Funny that we talk about "the way is easy; just avoid having preferences" until we get up off the cushion and there's nothing BUT choices all day, every day.

Gassho,
-K2
#SatToday

balance I'm sure will come with time and patience.

Yes, it sure will. =)

Gassho
Shingen

s@today

[Seishin]

Seishin-Do

Zazen is not instant, it is life long. Just as life is life long, so too are those uncomfortable days or days we wish we could do without. What ever arises in your sitting let arise, try not to be chasing good zazen and pushing away or being discouraged by bad zazen ... in zazen, there is no good or bad, but zazen itself ... whole and complete. =)

Of course we don't want to torture ourselves either, doing so will just discourage us even more. Allow yourself time to sit with discomfort, but also allow yourself to put discomfort aside and do something that encourages you. Balance I feel is the key. Make sense? =)

Gassho
Shingen

s@today


Sent from my mobile, cause I am out & about! =)

Shigen

Rome was truly not built in a day. Seeing the responses here just reaffirms we are all the same at the end of the day - be it good or bad or just Day. As Jundo says we are all beginners. Tomorrow is another day but I'm happy to take each one as it comes. The balance I'm sure will come with time and patience.

[Jakuden]

I just listened to a recent talk by Michael Yukon Grody, on ZMM's podcasts, called "reacting and responding." In the very beginning he describes how he has sat sesshin for half his life now, and how there is that deep settled feeling at the end of sesshin, after the long period of silence and meditation... then he says after it is ended, a person might come up and say ONE WORD to him and he's already "deep in the sh*t."

Gassho,
Jakuden
SatToday

Seishin-Do

Zazen is not instant, it is life long. Just as life is life long, so too are those uncomfortable days or days we wish we could do without. What ever arises in your sitting let arise, try not to be chasing good zazen and pushing away or being discouraged by bad zazen ... in zazen, there is no good or bad, but zazen itself ... whole and complete. =)

Of course we don't want to torture ourselves either, doing so will just discourage us even more. Allow yourself time to sit with discomfort, but also allow yourself to put discomfort aside and do something that encourages you. Balance I feel is the key. Make sense? =)

Gassho
Shingen

s@today


Sent from my mobile, cause I am out & about! =)

[Seishin]

Kliff / All

Many thanks for posting this article, as it and the subsequent responses and comments - especially Jundo's Fire Management 'feature' - have put me in a better place.

After just 10 days with Treeleaf and sitting daily, I've just had two 'nightmare' practice days, that have left me frustrated, irritated angry confused big style. Yesterday my zafu felt like a razor blade while my old legs sat in seiza and my mind was just full of thoughts. This morning was worse, I changed my zafu position but could not settle. No sunny intervals just a full blown eclipse! But my mind's not thinking about life problems relationship in general etc, its been more about Zen, breathing posture, sitting, Mickey Mouse rainwear you name it. I gasshoed and changed position a few times but could not settle and started to get wound up. When I did finally start to settle down a post on scale linking from my guitar forum filled my mind. Arrggh. I stewed on this for a few hours afterwards, wondering why it was happening, what I was doing wrong and if I'd made a mistake joining the community. Had I put too much pressure on myself in doing so - I could not remember a worse experience when I'd sat in the past on my own. Decided I'd see how the day panned out and maybe drop Shigen a message for advice.

Got home after my Friday bread run and dog walk and saw this thread and wow, relief its not just me. Its just how I'm dealing with it. All my life I've known I just need to let go but saying and doing are so very different in practice. Anyway I guess this has been a reality check or non-reality check.

In retrospect I think I've either taken a Zen overdose, in what I've been reading over the last couple of months and especially the last week (read Suzuki's ZMBM again since joining!! Working through Shobogenzo) let alone the forum stuff or its probably just analysis paralysis. But without this thread I might have given up. Going to ease up for a few days and just go with the flow when I sit and take it moment by moment,

So thank you folks and gassho many times over.