Whispering Wyrd

It can be hard to do anything when you’re sick. Depending on how sick you are, formal meditation can feel impossible. Sometimes just laying in bed is all you can manage. Two nights ago I didn’t meditate at all for the first time in months.

That got me thinking about Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen, and his teaching of being-time. In this view, we are not creatures trapped inside a container called time, we are time itself. I know that can sound strange at first, especially to those of us raised to see time as a straight line moving from past to future. But there is something unquestionably true in it, this present moment is all we ever actually have. We cannot be anywhere except here, now.

When you’re sick, that truth can feel like a burden. You might feel trapped in the discomfort or pain, wondering if it will ever end. But the same time can also be seen differently, as rest-time, healing-time, recovery-time. Sometimes the way we view an experience changes the experience itself.

Still feeling sick last night I decided to meditate anyway. I’m glad I did. I woke up feeling better physically, but more importantly, I woke up in a better state of mind.

One of the things I find fascinating about Soto Zen meditation is that there is no goal. If you sit down thinking, “I’m doing this to calm myself,” or “I’m doing this to feel peaceful,” then you’ve already turned it into something else, it’s no longer Soto meditation. In Soto Zen, there is nothing to chase. You simply sit. This is called Shikantaza, literally “just sitting.”

You observe thoughts without trying to stop them. You don’t cling to pleasant feelings or resist unpleasant ones. You don’t label any sensation as good or bad. You just let things be what they are. That is “reality-as-is”. It sounds simple but it can be surprisingly difficult.

When you sit this way you learn about yourself. You start to notice old habits of mind like fear, anger, craving, self judgment, old stories you tell yourself constantly. Dogen said, “To study the self is to forget the self.” That doesn’t mean losing your personality or erasing who you are. It means loosening the grip of the constant “I, me, mine” lens we view everything with.

When that grip loosens, something better happens… kindness toward yourself as you already are. From there, it’s easier to offer kindness to others too.

This practice can help with stress, difficult emotions, painful memories, even sickness. Last night I noticed how my mind was reacting to being sick. I could see the discouragement getting stronger like “Will I ever feel better? How long will this last?” By just sitting with it I could also see that those thoughts and feelings were temporary. They were passing weather not a permanent truth. Like clouds floating through the sky.

I can’t say whether meditation healed my body or not. But I can say it helped me stop making my suffering worse than it already was. You don’t have to be sick to benefit from this. You can apply it to anger, sadness, boredom, anxiety, or everyday stuff. You start to notice the difference between an automatic reaction and a deliberate response. Someone offends you and instead of instantly striking back you can pause. You can choose awareness.

I wish I had learned these tools decades ago. It would have saved me and those I love a lot of pain. But regret can be another trap if we live in it too long. We all have things we wish we had done differently. Healing happens here and now not by reliving yesterday over and over again.

One of the hardest things for me to release was worrying about certain people’s opinions of me. Not everyone’s, just a few people whose approval I wanted but could never earn. The goalposts always moved. Letting go of that burden has been one of the most freeing things I’ve ever done. These days the only opinions that matter most to me are those of four people, my wife and my sons. That’s it.

There is freedom available in this life, freedom from addiction, from trauma, from anxiety, and from patterns that don’t serve us anymore. It takes effort, honesty, and patience but it is possible.

Part of that freedom starts with seeing things and yourself clearly. You can’t change what stays hidden. But when you learn to sit quietly and observe your own mind, what was buried and hidden starts to come into clear view. Then you can build something healthier and better in its place.

Amituofo
~Buck