Seeing My Death in Zazen

Sitting the other day, I suddenly felt the clear reality of my own death. Breathe in, breath out, and one day this too will cease. As a child, I distinctly remember when I first became aware of the inevitability of own death. I must have been about 5 years old. I was eating lunch and my parents, as was their habit, had the radio on with the news. I listened to a short piece about how "scientists" estimated that Earth would cease to exist in several billion years. I suddenly felt my vision was bright and crisp, accompanied by that awful feeling of being punched in the stomach. Since then, I have this experience every so often, but this is the first time while sitting zazen.

Boil water, Put the kids to bed, Sit zazen

I just finished reading Jeff Wilson's essay in Tricycle "Meditation: a rare practice" discussing how rare zazen practice is for householders in most Buddhist cultures, including Japan. It puts a new perspective on the Western householder practice. Emphasizing zazen as a foundation of householder practice seems to be a new and particularly Western practice. The struggle to balance householder life and zazen is being lived out as a great experiment in our time and place, and we do not yet know the outcome. I am not sure how I feel about this new information. On the one hand, it is daunting to think that zazen practice has perhaps been tried by other householders in far more supportive cultures and not taken root. On the other hand, it is exciting that we live in a time and place where we have the luxury of building sanghas around this Zen experiment. Boil water, put the kids to bed, sit zazen.

Hiding in Zazen

When the ten-thousand things seem to press in, I find myself hiding in zazen. This is usually related much more to aversion than taking refuge, it seems. Zazen then becomes a place-time-state to hide from fear of the ten-thousand things (or the one or two that seem really frightening or oppressive at the moment!). What does it truly mean to take refuge?

The Language of Being

Words and speach are the language of knowing. The languague of knowing divides, categorizes, judges, describes, makes images of the unimaginable, and seeks communication. It has a speaker, that which is spoken, and an audience. Action and non-action, movement and stillness, the void and the ten-thousand things are the language of being. Zazen, koan practice, shikuntaza, kinhin, and compassion are expressions of the language of being. There is nothing to speak, nothing which is spoken, and no audience. Be zazen, be the koan, be compassion. Children have this ability, and one merit of family practice is the opportunity to become the language of being with your children, to re-learn it.

Lessons from our Children

Householders with children have the advantage of seeing the world anew through their children's eyes. A few years ago, one of my kids did something that she knew she was not supposed to. Discussing the "event" at bedtime, she succinctly described that sinking feeling. "You know when you aren't supposed to do something, and then you just did it?" Yes, that jolt of eyes-wide-open clarity after action and before consequences. Children seeing karma clearly. In zazen, I am re-learning to immerse my "self" in that flash of bright stillness.