Returning to Practice....After a Time Away

After a time, my practice dwindled.  Now, it's time to return.

There are many things that can derail a householder practice:  family obligations, a job, the ten thousand things of living in the world, health issues, and these days - electronic distraction.  We are all likely to fall off the cushion for one or more of these.  For me it has been caring for elderly parents, professional obligations, a broken ankle, an iPhone, and fatigue borne of all of these.  Practice fell away over several years.

Bodhidharma likely foresaw many of these, but I would particularly like to hear what the bearded barbarian would say about our present-day electronic distractions.  This seems applicable:

“But people of the deepest understanding look within, distracted by nothing. Since a clear mind is the Buddha, they attain the understanding of a Buddha without using the mind.” - Bodhidharma

And so, today, I return.  For encouragement, I have colored in one eye of a Japanese Daruma doll (達磨).  The tradition is to color in one eye when you make a vow to persevere in some endeavor, and
the other when you have achieved it.  The irony is not lost on me, as the Heart Sutra says: "Attainment too is emptiness".  So the other eye will never be colored in.  And yet, it is a way to mark intentionality of re-starting on the Path, although you don't ever leave it.

Hammer and Nail

When all you have is one approach to the Great Way, you become a hammer looking for a nail.  The Way contains all things, and we must be lithe in our walking to take every step mindfully.  With all of the unanticipated turns and uneven ground, we must adapt our stride continuously.  If we are rigid, we become the hammer in search of the nail.  If they nail does not appear, we may be tempted to whack something anyway, just to feel the heft of the hammer and hear the ring of the blow on the nail, any nail, even no-nail....

Walking Without Seeing The Way

"If you do not see the way,
you do not see it even as you walk on it.
When you walk the way, it is not near, it is not far."

The Harmony of the Relative and Absolute (Sandokai)

It is fortunate that even when we do not see it, we walk the Way.   What can this mean?  We are not separate from the Great Way, even when we stop sitting for a time, and cannot see it.  Why then must we sit zazen?   It is not only to walk the Way, but to know that we walk on it.  Watching my children live their lives, I often see them express great mastery of some skill, or great insight, and not see it themselves.  On one hand, this is what zazen is about, returning to that state of simple, unaffected expression of a child.  Yet we are loaded down with concepts, grasping, aversion, and thoughts that obscure this sight and taint our actions.  As said by the Ancient Masters, going beyond this by zazen means that we eat when hungry and drink when thirsty, and now  know our intent and actions, simply and for what they are.  The vision of years and unencumbered action of a child.