ZCSD NEWSLETTER — September, 2003
2047 Felspar Street San Diego, California 92109-3551 858-273-3444
“True freedom is being without anxiety about imperfection.”
Zen master Seng-tsan
LABOR DAY: The Center will be closed Labor Day weekend, from Saturday, August 30 through Monday, September 1.
DHARMA TRANSMISSION: Joko announces with pleasure the transmission of the Dharma on August 21 to Larry Jissan Christensen. Larry currently leads a sitting group in Portland, Oregon.
SEPTEMBER MEETING: There will be a meeting of the teachers of the Ordinary Mind Zen School at ZCSD from Sept 19-21. There will be a regular Saturday schedule on Sept 20.
JOKO AWAY: Joko will be away from Sept 22-29.
SCHEDULE
Dawn SittingWeekdays, Mon. – Fri. 6-7 am
Tues. EveningTwo Sittings, 6:30 – 8:00 pm
Wed. EveningTwo Sittings, 6:30 – 7:40 pmPractice seminar follows
(until about 8:20 pm)
Thurs. EveningTwo Sittings, 6:30 – 8:00 pm
Sat. Morning8:30 amWork practice
8:45 amIntroductory workshop for newcomers
Follow-up instruction for those who have
attended introduction
9:00 am-NoonThree sittings; Dharma talk
Please park at least two blocks away from the Zen Center and avoid areas
that are designated for patrons of our business neighbors.
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ADDICTIONS AND PRECISION IN PRACTICE
In a way we can say that practice is very simple and clear. It’s about first seeing through the mental process, dropping the story line of “me”, and then entering into the experiential, non-conceptual world, into the silence of reality as it is.
The problem is that practice is often not simple and clear when in the midst of the muddiness of everyday life. But part of our job is to bring a certain precision and impeccability to practice. That’s why it’s important to keep returning to the two basic aspects of practice: the first being observing the conceptual or mental process, and the second being the actual experiencing of the physical reality of the present moment.
Being precise entails focusing specifically on what gets in the way of the clarity of practice, particularly on the addictions that prevent us from working simply and clearly in these two areas. And don’t be mistaken, we all have addictions----the behaviors we don’t seem quite able to stop; the addictions to those things we think we can’t do without, the things we think will satisfy us but which ultimately leave us with dissatisfaction. I’m not talking about the most obvious addictions, like the chemical addictions to drugs or alcohol. There are other more subtle addictions that we all fall prey to to some extent.
Let’s start with the addiction to comfort. What does this look like? Think about your own addictions to comfort. Does it manifest as not sitting when you don’t feel like it, or as moving around during sitting? Does it come out in your attachment to food or sleep? Can you see it in the commitment to fantasizing? There’s comfort in fantasizing, isn’t there? I’m talking about all of the manipulations we do to constantly seek comfort and try to avoid pain.
What is the practice? We first have to see these tendencies---that this is what we do. Then looking at the mental process, we start by looking at our most basic beliefs. For example, do you have the deep-seated belief: “I can’t be happy if I’m in discomfort.” But is this true, that we can’t be happy if in discomfort? I certainly believed this for a long time, but now I know that it simply isn’t true.
Once we see these clearly, what is the experiential component? It’s staying with the antsyness, the anxious quiver, the hole of discomfort out of which our addictions spring. But first it’s helpful to clearly see the thoughts.
This leads to the addiction to our thoughts. As you observe yourself with precision, you’ll come to see that you rarely take a breath without a thought or opinion or judgment going through your head. Much of it is innocuous---just energy coming through as mental concepts. But sometimes we have to label more precisely, like when caught in self-judgments.
In fact, the addiction to self-judgments is sometimes hard to see. Why? Because they really seem like the truth. For example, have you had the judgment, “After all these years I’m still doing that. I’ll never get this. I’m hopeless. I’m a bad person.” Working in the conceptual area, it’s very important to label these with precision, or else they go by unlabeled, thus believed. And then what happens? We keep the judgment intact.
Working in the experiential area, once we know the self-judgments are just opinions, we ask ourselves what it feels like to hold onto them. Again we have to bring a precision to this, to avoid falling back into thinking. If we get hooked into thoughts, we’ll likely fall into wallowing in guilt and shame, where we end up believing the thoughts rather than experiencing the feelings.
Which leads to one of our strongest addictions--the addiction to our feelings or emotional states. Think about the last emotional state you experienced. When you were in it, didn’t it seem like the truth? In fact, if we get caught, for example, in discouragement, it often seems like the deepest truth about ourselves---that we’ll never measure up, that we’ll never fit in, and so on. Or if we’re caught in anxiety or confusion, they don’t even seem like they’re just passing emotional states. They have a definite feeling of solidity and permanence. They don’t feel like an addiction, in that there is no apparent comfort in them. They may feel more like a barrier. But they are only a barrier until we go through them. And then we see they were just a prop---a prop that we’re addicted to in order to confirm our identity, to hold us together.
This is one of the hardest aspects to see: the addiction to our identities, or who we think we are. For example, if we have the identity of being a zen student, we may get comfort from the identity of being part of something bigger than us. Or we could have the identity of being a good student, hardworking, deep; or even of being a poor student. We certainly get a perverse but very juicy comfort in “being right”, or being busy.
The conceptual aspect is to see these difficult-to-see identities with clarity. The experiential aspect comes when our identities are threatened, when our strategies to hold ourselves together fail. Here we have the opportunity to work with the sense of no ground--- just the place we don’t want to be. But in a way, the essence of practice is about dropping our addictions to our identities, learning to be no one, no one special to be.
This will almost always lead us to the feeling of fear. Notice how much of your day that you’re holding tightly to your fears, especially the addiction to control. For example, all of our “what if” thinking---“what if I don’t do it right, what if it’s painful, what if I look bad,” and on and on. Aren’t all of these based on wanting to control some imagined future, not on what’s happening now? To see this is crucial, and then to label, label, label, asking “what is my most believed thought right now?”
And then to just sit here with what’s happening right NOW, with just the intense sensations of fear—the tightness, the queasiness, the narrowing down---perhaps asking the practice question or koan, “What is this moment?” What happens when we do this? Finding the answer is what practice is really about.
Again, the simplicity and clarity of practice amounts to this: first seeing through the mental process, dropping the story line of “me”. What is the story line of “me”? It’s the addiction to comfort and to our thoughts; it’s the addiction to our self-judgments and emotions; it’s the addiction to our identities and our fears. Only when we drop this story line of “me” can we then enter into the experiential, non-conceptual world, into the silence of reality as it is.
Edited from At Home In The Muddy Water by Ezra Bayda
Shambhala Publications, June, 2003
Sesshin Application Follows on Page 4
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APPLICATION FOR SESSHIN
ZEN CENTER of SAN DIEGO • 2047 Felspar St. • San Diego, CA 92109 • 858-273-3444
Please print clearly to avoid delay in processing your application, and please fill out this form completely.
Name ______Age ______Gender _____
Address ______City ______State ____ Zip ______
Home phone ______Work phone ______
Emergency contact (name) ______(phone) ______
(must be blood relative or spouse)
e-mail______(ZCSD has no e-mail address, but volunteers may contact you by e-mail).
Circle the sesshin for which you are applying:
Please note: Applications cannot be considered unless a check for sesshin fees is included
DateMemberNon-memberMail-in Date
Nov. 7-10 (Elizabeth and Ezra) 90.00 105.00Sept. 7
Dec. 26-31 150.00 175.00 Sept. 26
Have you ever attended sesshins with Joko or Elizabeth/Ezra? ___Yes___ No
This will be my ___1st ___ 2nd ___ 3rd ___ + sesshin at ZCSD
Date/location/teacher of your most recent sesshin ______
Mail in form no earlier than the mail-in date above, marked: Attention Sesshin Coordinator. The postmark will be entered as the application date. Please wait to make air reservations until your application has been confirmed. We will notify you as soon as decisions have been made. If you haven’t heard from us exactly one month before the sesshin begins, please call the Center.
Arrive by 6:30 pm the first night.** Last day will end about 3:00 pm. A light snack will be available the first evening.
**Newcomers please arrive early for orientation. Orientation begins at 4:30 pm
Work Skills (circle): cooking, shopping prior to sesshin, electrical, carpentry, painting, computer, gardening, flower arranging, jobs prior to sesshin, other: ______
Physical conditions limiting participation:______
I agree to maintain a daily sitting practice from the time of this application through the sesshin. I will participate in the entire schedule, including interviews, sittings, meals, work, and any assigned tasks. I will be on time for all activities. I understand that my physical, mental, and emotional well-being are my own responsibility. Zen practice is not a substitute for therapy. I am capable of undertaking the rigors of a sesshin at this time. I am seeking medical or therapeutic treatment for any condition(s) I have, and have revealed all pertinent information on this form. I will sign a waiver releasing ZCSD from accident and injury liability.
______
SignatureLegibly printed name
ALL BLANKS ON APPLICATION FILLED IN?___ Yes___ NoPrintable E-MAIL v 01/03