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I hate riding my bike over the George Washington Bridge. Yet I do it every weekend at least once and often twice. I do it because once I get over the bridge and onto the other side, well after 10 or 15 more minutes of not so pleasant riding, I reach the wide shoulder on Route 9W and some delightful riding, the sweet center of the excursion. Trees on both sides of the wide road offer beauty, seasonal eye candy and plenty of oxygen. The terrain is varied and there’s plenty of room for everybody, even for vehicular traffic.
I share this city cycling exodus with hundreds, if not thousands, of New York City cyclists. The trek up Riverside Drive with cars and no shoulder; the climb up the narrow ramp, with a hairpin switchback, onto the bridge with crazy testosterone-pumped cyclists flying toward and around me; eight hairy negotiations around two stanchions, each with four right angle blind turns, and passage only wide enough for two abreast; dodging pedestrians, picture takers, inexperienced bikers, joggers and tourists, is all part of getting to the good stuff. Being a New Yorker and well-seasoned to putting up with inconveniences, I generally take such things in stride.
So I’ve come to accept the bad (the bridge) in order to have the good (the long, clear ride to the state line, about 30 miles round trip; or Piermont, NY, about 40 miles; or Nyack, NY, about 50 miles; or any number of backcountry-ish roads).
Every time I take this ride, and I’ve done it for years, I think about how much I dislike the bridge and count down in my mind the three worst parts so I can relax and breathe and begin to enjoy the ride.
On a recent ride I decided to stop hating the bridge. Just that. I didn’t decide to love it; I just decided not to hate it so much. Not to get upset at the crazies who get in my way or make me feel unsafe. Not to judge how others traverse the same expanse over the mighty Hudson River. Not to discount the first half hour of my ride—the necessary evil—but to embrace it, one breath, one pedal stroke at a time. And not to dread the worst sections of the ride before I reached them, which served to take me out of the moment, the place, the experience I was having along the way.
I decided to approach the ride, and my new commitment to not being negative, as I would a meditation. Stay in the moment, don’t project, watch what arises without judgment, don’t wish for it to be over; embrace the difficulty, the pain and the fear with a smile.
For the first time ever I did not hate the ride across the bridge. I did not take myself out of whatever moment I was in to think ahead to the hated sections and think: “Just two more to go and then I can enjoy this,” or “One more and it’ll be done.” In fact, such thoughts, once I made the decision to stop hating the bridge, never even arose. Since they were such regular passengers on my rides to New Jersey, I thought it might take more effort, more time to banish them. But simply by making the choice before I got to the bridge was enough.
Here’s what replaced the inner grumbling:
- I had more patience for myself as I walked up the ramp and did not judge my decision to do so. It felt safe and I was not in a race; nor did I have to impress anyone with my bike handling. This led to more patience with others.
- I noticed that many people were more tentative, rather than reckless, and less experienced than I: they weren’t at all crazy, just timid. I felt more compassionate and patient. I even smiled a few times.
- I inhabited every second of the trip across the bridge, paid attention to every person, every patch of rough terrain, every breeze floating up from the river.
On the way home I prepared my mind for the inevitable crossing—as I might prepare for a meditation session—and was so focused on each moment that the eight tight angle turns and the steep ramp off the bridge with its sharp switchback and its 90 degree turn at the bottom onto a narrow sidewalk bearing a metal plate and approaching cyclists became interesting rather than bothersome points in my journey. Then I found myself cruising down Riverside Drive toward home without the usual I’m-glad-that’s-over thought in my head. It had been replaced with “That was a great ride!”
Turns out it was my fastest time this season, maybe ever, to the State Line and back—not that I’m intent on breaking any speed records, but it was a nice surprise. And I can’t wait to do it again.
One thought that did occur to me somewhere in the middle of the bridge was: “I wonder if I’ll still be doing this when I’m 80.” Last week I would have said: “I doubt it.” This week I said: “I sure hope so.” Then I brought myself back to the moment.
I felt ageless, joyous and free. What a difference a little samadhi makes.
*Samadhi: a nondualistic state of consciousness in which the consciousness of the experiencing subject becomes one with the experienced object. An abiding in which mind becomes very still but does not merge with the object of attention, and is thus able to observe and gain insight into the changing flow of experience. (Wikipedia)
My 90-in-90—days of writing in that many days—is already 5 days old. I’ve established a routine: so far so good.
Soyen Shaku’s heart burned for his daily meditation practice, as mine does for my daily writing practice. Like him: ‘Upon awakening, I leave my bed behind me instantly as if I had cast away a pair of old shoes.’
Mornings are for writing. Before breakfast, with a cup of tea, I head to my desk. I glance at  my email just in case an emergency has arisen overnight. I respond to no one; everything can wait till after my morning session. I realize an urgent message would be delivered some other way. Soon I will wean myself off looking at all until I’ve put in my hours.
I turn off my phones, pick up my pen and start up where I left off the day before. Yes, first draft is always with pen and paper. It brings me closer to the words. It’s messy. There is no sound but the scratching of my fountain pen, no light straining my eyes, and no Internet calling to me.
Hemingway always left one sentence unfinished at the end of a day so he wouldn’t have to stare at a blank page first thing in the morning. I’m no Hemingway, don’t want to be, but I like that.
I write in a spiral bound notebook, the ones kids use for school. You can buy them in bulk, cheap, in September when school starts. Natalie Goldberg taught me this.
Afternoons are for the business of writing. There’s so much of that to do, as I climb the steep learning curve of self-publishing, that it could become a full time job; but I won’t let it, because writing is what burns in my heart.
Self-publishing is empowering and exciting; and thankfully, it is losing some of its stigma of old as some self-published ebooks outsell major name authors at much lower prices.
I am getting into the swing of Tweeting, following people, having people follow me, finding other writers out there working alone and yet in community—a virtual speak-easy or salon, but rather like junior high. As with most of us who follow a solitary pursuit, I’m not big on socializing, but this I can do. Come to think of it, I was pretty happy in junior high school.
I don’t have all my ducks in a row yet for a crackerjack marketing campaign for my new book, my first novel, my new child so to speak. And if I were a legacy publisher (this is the new term for the Simon & Schuster’s of the world, a company I once worked for) I’d give up on myself by now, as sales are slow out of the gate. This giving up on authors, or being unwilling to take a risk and nurture new talent, may eventually be one of the nails in the coffin of book publishing as we once knew it.
I’m sure it will take time to build a following, to build sales, to get noticed and reviewed. But that’s okay, I’m not going anywhere and I won’t put my book out of print. Because there are so many books out there, especially with so many people jumping on the self-publishing bandwagon, it’s harder than ever for readers to wade through and find the gems. But they do and if mine is one, it will be found.
My years of meditation practice and honing patience will come in handy as I travel this new path. I believe in my story, my characters, discriminating readers and our future together.
If you’re a writer and want some motivation to write, join me and @tootsuter on the 90-in-90 writing journey. Find us on Twitter at #90daysofwriting. Get your pen moving! Get your heart burning! Get that book you’ve always dreamed of writing out there in the world!
[In tandem with my 90 days of writing One Hand Killing will be available exclusively at Amazon for 90 days. The timing won’t sync perfectly with my 90 day writing calendar, but whatever does? (I have a small twinge of guilt turning my back on all my friends at Barnes & Noble (I used to work there too!) and taking my book off sale for Nook readers, but it’s only temporary. They probably won’t even notice.)
I’ve published my first novel—hooray for me! And I’m halfway through writing the second one. Again, hooray for me!
It only took six published non-fiction books and too many years to assign an actual number to—who’s to know when I had my first inkling that I wanted to be a writer?—to finally settle into writing fiction. I started writing One Hand Killing somewhere around the turn of this century (that’s a wild notion) and published it last month. After many legacy publishers rejected it in 2008, I put it in a drawer, discouraged.
In 2009 I started the second book in what I hoped one day would become the Alex Sullivan Zen Mystery series. But with trying to make a living, teaching my classes, involvement in a small publishing venture, I gave up on the novel writing, figuring I’d get back to it at some point.
That some point is now. I’m not getting any younger. The drive to write fiction is still here. And, from what I’m learning from successful mystery authors, one book does not make a series. (I knew that!) So the sooner I get the next one out the better my chances of selling #1.
Plus, since One Hand Killing was my first full-length book attempt at fiction, I know my writing will get better, my characters will evolve, and I’ll give readers a choice.
So, I’ve given myself a writing challenge. 90 days of writing in 90 days.
Amanda Hocking (a wildly successful, young, self-published author) says it takes her 2-4 weeks to write one of her books. after thinking about it for a year.
I am not that sort of writer, though it might be something to aspire to. So, I’m giving myself 90 days to finish the first draft of Killing Sacred: the current working title of #2.
I’ve given up the idea of making money during this time so I can devote all my energy to writing (I really can’t afford not to make money, but I trust it won’t be for naught. Let’s just say this is my New Year’s gift to myself—and hopefully to some readers later this year.)
Other things I have to do during this time:
Tweet
Blog
SEO my Website
Teach
Sit
Exercise
Eat well
Have a little fun
I feel like Ben Franklin with his lists. Really, what I have to do is write!
If you’re a writer or an inspiring one, check out Joe Konrath and John Locke. They have both inspired me to do this. Thanks, guys. And thanks to all those writers on Kindleboards and all those working writers out there I haven’t been introduced to yet.
I already love being a part of this community that I am just now discovering; after all the years I spent in the book business it is a nice surprise. Let’s just say, you’re never too old to learn something new.
I will be posting my efforts on Twitter and this blog if you want to follow my progress.
Sort of. Not really. If it were, I’d be doing more of it. But, there’s always something else to do. Yesterday, someone said that writing gets harder the longer you do it. I think he might be right.
I keep thinking that if I did it more, every day, were more disciplined about it (at least as disciplined as I am with my meditation practice, which itself isn’t perfect, but I can at least say that I sit regularly with my cyber Sangha), the words would flow, I’d have more books written, I’d post more blogs, more Tweets, more FB updates.
At this moment though, I’m not sure that’s true.
Of course, if I wrote every day I’d have more words on the page. I still write long hand with a fountain pen. I love the physicality of it: watching the letters form, blacken the white empty space, turn into words, sentences, sometimes books.
But as Shakespeare once wrote: “Words, words, words.”
And there are so many of them out there, filling the enormous, infinite, empty space of the Internet, not to mention all the words in print.
This is what distracts me lately from the writing I want to do (aside from the usual self-doubt and insecurity): thinking about the writing and other activities I must do to market my recently published first novel.
Correction: “self”-published first novel. There’s some shame attached to that prefix: “self”—some of it historical, some of it from my Zen training.
My “self.” I was taught to consider others before my “self;” to lose my “self;” to not be “self”-ish.
To love myself, to promote myself, to talk about myself: that is foreign and uncomfortable territory.
But now it’s up to me to self-promote my self-published book because my agent couldn’t sell it, because no “legitimate” publisher wanted to publish it.
I read stories all the time about writers past and present who were rejected over and over again before they became best selling authors. Yesterday, these writers eventually found an editor at a publishing house who was willing to take a risk, willing to hang in for the long term, willing to support them as they polished their craft. Today, the scenario is more often that the writer is self-published—usually with an e-book first—and with time, patience and a review here and there, the book gets noticed and catapulted into bestsellerdom.
Then a mainstream publisher might take notice. Yet, more and more, self-published authors are refusing to sign with a publisher, choosing to remain in control of their books and make more money: with 70% of the royalties going straight to them versus the meager 10-25% that publishers normally offer. The readers also win here because self-published authors usually charge less than publishers. $.99-$3.99 seems to be the norm, versus $7.99 and higher from publishers. (And 70% of $3.99 is more than 25% of $7.99.)
It’s true that with a traditionally published book the onus of marketing and publicity is off the author, giving her more time to write. But there’s no guarantee that the publisher will market and publicize your book any better than an individual “self” can do it. And if one’s assigned editor moves to another publishing house, which happens frequently, then the book will languish as an orphan with no one paying attention; and then it’s priced way too high to get attention in the sea of books available to download instantly for cheap and the author has no control.
But marketing one’s book takes much effort and time away from actually writing.
So, now I’m back to “writing is the easy part.”
Once a book is written, which can take months and often years with no remuneration, comes: the editing; the copy-editing; the proof-reading; the formatting of the Word doc for all the various e-book readers (no, this is not simple); the cover design; the ISBN; choosing a price point; publishing on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords etc.; letting the world know it’s available.
Getting attention, even among friends and family, is perhaps the most challenging aspect of the whole process. Once published, your book is now in competition with all the other books out there PLUS all the other time bandits and attention getters: blogs, websites, FB, Twitter, magazines, games, email, Google, texting; the list goes on.
It is daunting. My book seems like a grain of sand on a planet full of beaches.
So, now I’ve spent the morning writing this to post on my blog, on my new website that needs some SEO: Search Engine Optimization, so that when people Google certain words, like mystery or meditation, my website will show up. This is on my list of things to do when I have the money to do it.
Then I’ll Tweet that I have a new blog post, update my personal FB and my FB fan page to let my friends know I’ve written something. And maybe a few of you will be on the computer to see that it’s here. Maybe you’ll read this post. Maybe you’ll write a note to yourself to download a copy of the book when you have time. Maybe you’ll even get around to reading it. And, if you like it, maybe you’ll post a review of it, which is the best marketing tool there is, which no one is in control of except the gods of the Internet.
Maybe nobody will read these words.
At this moment, that is okay. It feels great to be writing something. Like I said, the easy part.
I’m about ready to push the button to let the world know that I’ve published my first novel! Gulp!
Murder in a Zen Buddhist Monastery!
Not much to say except that I hope you love it and can’t wait for the second book in the series that I can’t wait to get back to writing.
Okay, done! here it is for sale and only $4.99. ($3.99 until 12/30/11 if you use coupon code RL97C at checkout)
After you read it, tell me what you think, here or on Smashwords. Share it on FB, Twitter and anyplace else you socialize and talk about books. I would love the world to meet and love as I do Alex Sullivan, NYPD detective and Zen student.
Happy Reading!
Trust in yourself and your feelings: the 4th essential of mindfulness practice. My Monday night group and I will be sitting with this for the next week.
I have a long way to go with this practice. I sit here right now afraid to write all that is in my head. Afraid to share it with the world, on my blog, or on FB. Afraid for people to see it, to see me. Afraid that no one will see it. So then there it is, the operative word: Afraid.
Fear of me, of you, of now, of later, of nothing, of everything. And yet….
 The New Sangha And yet, I’m calm in the middle of all that so something’s working. Could be the residual effect of the all day sit on Sunday, which I needed desperately. (Check out the photos on FB. It was fantastic to sit together with some of my old Sangha and some of my new students, all friends.)
Back to trust. Trust in the three jewels of Buddhism: Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Practically speaking, it’s not so easy; emotionally it’s even harder.
What I’m grappling with in this moment and afraid to write about is not only my future, but what is the best and most important thing to do in this moment?
As I write this I realize I am doing it: writing long hand with my fountain pen in my “Blog” notebook. “But what about my life?” my brain asks. “How will you make money? Pay the bills? Afford what you need? What direction should I take? How should I spend my time?”
What I want to do is work on my fiction writing: my second novel in the Alex Sullivan Zen mystery series that I started years ago. (The first in the series will be published as an e-book real soon).
Then there’s the Vermont business plan to work on; and the New York Samu marketing plan; and the corporate workshop plan; and the social media plan; and the find more clients plan; and…and…and…
And which will be the most lucrative? And which will most satisfy my heart-mind? And can I trust that whatever next step I take will be the right one?
Yes is my first reaction. But I can’t always trust my first reaction. Sometimes I feel as if I blundered years ago when I trusted my reaction to switch literary agents. (Read my blog post about that.)
 Altar at all day sit 11/13/11 Sitting with the question of trust a little longer, it is still yes. I realize that I am beginning to trust again.
I take a deep breath. I move toward doing the next right thing. And as Master Rinzai once said: “I will know what to do when I get there.”
Some years ago, I fired my literary agent. She had successfully shepherded my six non-fiction books to publication and I am grateful to her for that. I replaced her with another agent because he “loved” my Zen mystery novel, One Hand Killing.
He thought that fiction writing was the direction my career should take and, because I desperately wanted to believe him, I deserted someone who had not only believed in me and my writing, but someone who had become a friend.
But there were no hard feelings – it was “just business” – and I dove into re-writing the novel, trusting that my new agent would deliver.
After two years of writing draft after draft after draft, it was finally finished to the satisfaction of both my new agent and me. During that time, the book business took a nosedive and has since been transformed. For that and whatever other reasons, my new agent was unable to sell the book.
Disappointment is a mild word to describe how I felt. Let-down, abandoned, cheated, ignored are others that come closer. I felt like a failure and I had no clue what to do next. Not to mention I was broke.
But I picked up the pieces of my life that I’d put aside while in the tunnel of solitary writing and moved on. I had to cobble something together to get back on track with work doing the other things I loved to do: teaching classes, workshops and individuals how to meditate and live a mindful, spiritually fulfilling life.
Now, four years later, I’m back to teaching more, I have a new website, and I recently took the novel off the shelf it had been sitting on all this time, dusted it off, and with the encouragement of many friends and mentors, will be publishing it myself as en e-book real soon.
I can’t wait to get it out there and get back to writing the second book. I’ve missed my characters. I hope you get to like them as much as I do.
Just lately I realized that I’ve lost my way in my meditation practice. I still get to my cushion most days, but the joy that was once my regular companion is often missing. And I think I finally know why.
Since starting my practice 23 years ago it has felt as if my seat, my individual cushion was supported by the three jewels of Buddhism: Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Together they formed a tripod – the most stable of structures – that got stronger with each sit and sustained me through the ups and downs of my life.
Buddha is Buddha himself, and the Buddha within me, inspiring and encouraging me.  Dharma is the teachings, the wisdom and the truth of the universe that informs and guides my practice. And the Sangha is the community of practitioners, my fellow meditators, my teachers, my students, and all the people that populate my spiritual world.
Over a year ago, one leg of this tripod, the Sangha, suffered a serious blow and nearly sent me flying off my cushion altogether. My teacher was once again caught being sexually inappropriate with a student (after a 15 year lull when most of us thought his transgressions were finished) and then lying about it.
The revelation wasn’t a surprise but it was a shock, and felt like a betrayal. (I will write more about all of this at another time.) The discovery that he had been sexually acting out for those 15 years, when I for one had thought he’d been “good” or maybe just too old to do too much damage, was angering and dispiriting.
But I felt ready to leave this teacher. And so I did.
I did not need him anymore, as my practice had evolved enough so that I no longer wanted to be associated with such behavior – human though it might be. I knew he had crossed a line and I could no longer respect him. I tried not to judge, just to separate from him.
The Sangha was split asunder as a result of the scandal. The city Zendo that I went to once or twice every week and once a month for a whole weekend sesshin, and the monastery upstate that I regularly retreated to for sesshins and brought my own students to for weekend workshops, were no longer available to me. I found myself spiritually homeless.
Over the course of this past year or so without my regular doses of Sangha, I’ve experienced a deep loneliness that feels similar to the grief I’ve experienced after the death of a loved one. Indeed, it is a death of sorts. The individuals that made up the Sangha may all still be alive, but the Sangha, the life that we created as a group, is dead. And that is very sad.
I have other Sanghas for sure – just as I have more loved ones after I lose one – but the grief and mourning continue.
And just as I learned to live without the physical presence of loved ones who have died – my father (whose death 26 years ago sent me to the cushion); my first favorite Zen monk, Donge (whose death 20 years ago gave me the courage to make a deeper commitment to practice); and my mother-in-law (whose death last year inspired M and me to get married after we asked ourselves “what are we waiting for?”) – I am learning to live without the physical presence of my Sangha that I loved so much. I think that its loss, while sad, has also delivered me a gift. It’s too early to say exactly what that is yet, but I see aspects of it every day. No doubt I’ll share it here when it becomes clear.
In the meantime, I will continue to occupy my seat: my meditation cushion for starters, and then all the other seats I occupy in my life: my seat as wife, as friend, as teacher, as sister, as neighbor and as involved citizen.
I borrowed the title of this blog from the OccupyWallStreet group, or shall we say, Sangha. And though I am not an active daily member of that Sangha, I support what they are doing. Just as my Sangha stood up to our “too big to fail” Zen “Master,” they/we are standing up to the “too big to fail” corporate giants. So whether we are occupying Wall Street or any other town plaza in the world during this protest, there is a seat that we must occupy that holds our integrity, our truth and our life’s purpose.
And no matter what the weather is – internally or externally – if we commit to occupying this seat, no one can own us or push us around unless we agree to it. As Buddha said to his students just before he died: “Be a lamp unto yourself.” And find a Sangha if you don’t already have one and let it support you in the cause of personal and societal liberation.
So, stand firm, open your heart, meet violence with non-violence and we will all win. After all, we are all part of the Sangha called humanity.
A couple of weeks ago I brought a student to this zendo for the first time. At the end of the evening she said: “Next time will be better; I’ll know what to do.”
And I said: NO NO NO NO NO – the mind that you came here with tonight is the one you want to keep, that beginner’s mind. When we don’t know we can’t be other than in the present. When I first went up to the mountain monastery and did the morning chanting service, and the sutra book was put in front of me, and I chanted those chants, syllable, by syllable by syllable, it was really hard to pay attention. I never paid attention in my life to what was in front of me. But with those chants I was forced to be in the moment. Those chants were something that helped me to do that. Now that I know them, a lot of them by heart, it’s so much easier to space out.
Shunryu Suzuki, in “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind,” says: “The goal of practice is always to keep our beginner’s mind… In the beginner’s mind there is no thought, ‘I have attained something.’ All self-centered thoughts limit our vast mind. When we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self, we are true beginners. Then we can really learn something… If you start to practice zazen, you will begin to appreciate your beginner’s mind.”
No matter how many times I read this and no matter how many times I remind myself of this, I always hear it in a new way. “…. It is the secret of Zen practice.”
When I was thinking about this talk and what I would say regarding “I Don’t Know,” I knew I’d have to say something, I’d have to “know” something. So I started taking all these books down from my shelf. What can I talk about? I have to find something about not knowing. I opened “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma” and randomly selected a passage:
“If you use your mind to study reality, you won’t understand either your mind or reality. If you study reality without using your mind, you’ll understand both. Those who don’t understand, don’t understand understanding. And those who understand, understand not understanding. People capable of true vision know that the mind is empty. They transcend both understanding and not understanding. The absence of both understanding and not understanding is true understanding.”
Well! I was totally confused by this. I thought, oh my God, I don’t know anything. But how do I convey this? How do I convey… And maybe you all understood that.
I’ll bet that if I read that again and we all just sat and listened with our bodies… there would arise a pure understanding of what all that means. But I always try to ‘get it’ from my brain and so I have to keep sitting.
Some Zen masters say that it takes 30 years of sitting on a cushion to gain some glimmer of understanding. I’ve only been sitting for about 20 so I’ve got a long way to go. When I met my first monk, Donge, he told me to put down the books. And just sit.
So what is it that we do on the cushion, to not know? I can only tell you about my experience, and what it’s been for me has been a sit by sit dismantling of my habituated, conditioned patterns of thinking, of acting, of being.
By sitting, or PAYING ATTENTION, our patterns break up and we become, again, open to the mystery of being. It’s not always easy and it’s not always fun, but it’s always worthwhile, even when I go crying to Roshi seeking answers and all he says is: “sit more” or “suffer more” or “expect nothing.” And I return to my cushion deflated or inflated or frustrated or energized. This bringing attention to what arises as I sit brings me to some clarity, to the middle way, to some minute understanding of who I am.
Recently when I went into Dokusan, I was caught in the trap of my mind, and just suffering with a koan, and I wanted him to tell me, to give me something. So he just said: “Suffer more!” and I thought he was so uncompassionate.
By the end of sesshin I understood some of what Roshi meant by “suffer more” and today I found this quote by Carl Jung that shed a little more light on that for me: “Compassion is the sacred space that in which an individual can suffer the suffering he needs to experience.”
So, I’m beginning to understand some of that, some of what Roshi means when he says: “Suffer more!” It’s a relief really not to have to know something more than what I know right now.
One of my favorite Zen masters, Yogi Berra, said a couple of things that are very Zen like, one of which caught my attention today:
“You can see a lot just by looking.”
Another one is: “Nothing is like it seems, but everything is exactly like it is.”
And Michelangelo, when asked how he sculpted David said that he “chipped away everything that wasn’t David.”
This is what zazen practice is. Chipping away at everything that isn’t us. All the false knowing.
So, from the experience of sitting on the cushion we begin to understand in our bones that we are not separate from what we experience. It’s that feeling separate from what we experience that causes us so much suffering.
There is a phrase from a James Joyce story that describes what I was like for most of my life—for a lot of my life, before I found the cushion: “Mr. Duffy lived at a little distance from his body… regarding his own acts with doubtful side-glances.”
I was always living outside of myself, separate from myself.
Buddha said right before he died: “Be a Lamp unto yourself.”
On the one hand I don’t want anyone to tell me what’s what, what the truth of life is, to explain the mystery of life to me. On the other hand I want answers and think that a Zen monk or someone else will give them to me. Throughout my life I was looking for answers/for the solution/for love/for enlightenment in all the wrong places. When I finally found Buddhism I felt that the answers were here.
When I sat down on that cushion for the first time, I was in so much mental agony from a failed relationship. I had lost at love once again. I thought I wasn’t lovable, couldn’t love, and I just went to the monastery in a state of desperation. My father had died three years before. I was a shell of a person, really. And my mind wouldn’t stop. I was told to sit down on the cushion, they had showed me some positions, and they rang the bell, and we sat for forty-five minutes.
I thought I was going to die. Everything went through my head. I can’t, oh my god, I hate this, what am I doing here. I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t know… but I was so wrapped up in the pain of my body that all that noise in my head went away for a little while. And then I got up, and even though it was so painful, I knew that there was something there. There was something in that act of sitting still on that little black cushion and I didn’t know what it was. But I felt it in my bones, I felt it in my body that there was something there.
Suzuki says: “The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism, but to study ourselves. It is impossible to study ourselves without some teaching… But the teaching is not we ourselves; it is some explanation of ourselves. So if you are attached to the teaching, or to the teacher, that is a big mistake. The moment you meet a teacher, you should leave the teacher, and you should be independent. You need a teacher so that you can become independent. If you are not attached to him, the teacher will show you the way to yourself. You have a teacher for yourself, not for the teacher.”
So, Study Yourself. And the way we do that of course is through zazen.
Even after 20 years, I did not leave my teacher once I found him, I still go to him hoping that he will illuminate my confusion. (I have since left this teacher, but that is another story, another day, another blog.)
I keep thinking that there’s some kind of secret, that all the monks know the secret. They’ve got the secret to koan practice. Now, I don’t want to become a monk, but I’m going to find out what that secret is; in figuring out those goddarn koans. But even Buddha said: “There is no secret teaching. There is no hidden meaning.” But I still look.
Again, Yogi Berra: “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.” I’ll say that again. “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”
What I was looking for (and sometimes still do, when I’m away from the cushion too long) is some kind of certainty, something permanent and unchangeable. Even when I was a child in search of God. I wanted something tangible, something to hold on to. But the first thing we learn in Buddhism, the first truth is that of impermanence. Everything changes. People die. I’m going to die! But no one can tell me what that might feel like.
A student approached a Zen Master and asked, “What happens after we die?”
The Zen Master said, “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” exclaimed the student. “But you are a master!”
“That may be true,” was the reply, “but I’m not a dead one.”
So, how do we understand death until we die? We talk in Zen a lot about dying on the cushion. Die on the cushion! I’m not even going to tell you what that means. Most of you in this room know what that means.
Thich Nhat Hanh says: “Practice every day. It will save your life.”
And truly, without question, and I say this all the time: this practice saved my life.
I want to read this thing from Arthur Miller, who recently died. It’s from “After the Fall.” “…… I think one must finally take one’s life in one’s arms.”
And I think that’s what we do. I don’t know if Arthur Miller was a Zen practitioner or not, but when I read this it felt like that’s what I did when I sat on the cushion. That’s what I feel like I do every time I sit on the cushion. I don’t know, I really don’t know. It’s a mystery to me. And I’m happy to have it still be a mystery, to have life be a mystery. That opens up so much, so much life.
Two weeks ago Daiden gave a Dharma talk and he talked about some Greek guys, Diogenes being one of them, so I had to get a quote from a Greek here. This is from Sophocles:
“It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself and no one else made it.”
All I can say is: I Don’t Know. Thank you.
I once gave a Dharma talk entitled “I Don’t Know” which at the time was huge growth for me since I had come from the land of knowing and had often been referred to as Ms-Know-it-All. I didn’t, of course, know it all, but I was deluded enough to think it true and afraid to admit otherwise.
This Ms-Know-it-All pattern is still with me and pops up now and then as Mara tempting me. It disguises itself as judgment, anger, impatience and many other things. I was going to write about it here and then remembered a Dharma talk I once gave on the subject – one of the few talks I have notes for – so figured I’d post that. (It’s a bit long so will post it in segments.)
When I was asked to give this Dharma talk I didn’t know what I was going to talk about so I said, “I don’t know.” And then Seigan, the head monk, said, okay, what’s your title? And I said “I don’t know.”
Our conversation was a “Who’s On First” sort of riff. Seigan would say: “What’s your title?” And I’d say: “I don’t know.” And he’d say: “When will you know?” And I’d say: “I just told you.” “No, you said I don’t know.” “Right, exactly.” And so on…
I recently jotted a note to myself while I was working on a book project that will have in it my personal story/my spiritual education/my coming of age; I jotted in the margin: self-hatred.
“I had to know before I knew. I couldn’t not know. But I didn’t know. And I didn’t know that I didn’t know.” And in brackets I wrote: self-hatred.
So, what is this and how does it relate to Zen, and to the pain that we sit in, and to what we’re all doing here, sitting cross-legged and counting our breaths?
When I first sought help for the spiritual “malady” that I suffered all my life – I call it the I KNOW syndrome – any time my first spiritual guide would say something to help me, something I had never heard before, something that was completely foreign to me, I would always respond to her with “I know” – “I know” “I know” “I know.”
Of course, I didn’t know, but I couldn’t say that, it wasn’t even in my vocabulary.
I did think I knew it all; but I didn’t. On the other hand, what this person was saying to me made so much sense on some level that as soon as I heard it I felt like I knew it.
Somewhere in my body I knew what she was saying, and I knew that I had to know it, but I couldn’t say ‘I don’t know.’ What I’ve come to understand is that this I KNOW syndrome is linked to self-doubt and fear; fear of not being right, fear of being ridiculed, fear of the mystery of life, fear of living, fear of not living, and the really big one for me, fear of dying. Of course I didn’t know that – and it took a lot of time and a lot of sitting to finally get to the point where I could say ‘I Don’t Know.’ And that, saying I don’t know, was the beginning of waking up to my life, which is what I understand zazen to be all about.
But to retain this ‘I Don’t Know’ state of mind is very difficult. Yet it is imperative in this practice of Zen, as I understand it.
I was conditioned to take in, to learn, to fill up my brain with information, TO KNOW. When I was introduced to Zen I was told to become empty – and that went against everything I thought I knew. It was very scary because I was someone who always wanted, NEEDED, to know the end of the story.
Before I write a book, I want to know how it’s going to come out. But I never know. When I was still dating, before I even had my first date with a guy, I wanted to know if he was THE ONE, otherwise why waste my time? But of course I didn’t know.
Before I sit down on the cushion I want to know why? What am I going to experience? If I’m going to “get it.” But of course, again, I DON’T KNOW.
 Central Park 110th St Lake taken while riding my bike yesterday. It was too beautiful to speed by it. Soen Roshi once said something like, “Beauty is that which is unrepeatable.” With my stubborn, blind, I KNOW attitude, I wasn’t open to beauty for way too many years.
In 1985 my father died; this was the beginning of my awakening. It woke me up to my fear of dying, to death – somehow when our parents die, there’s less of a buffer between us and our own death. And I started to look at my life and take some actions to clean up my act. This was before I actually got to the cushion. But I was doing other things.
I love the beach. I would often go out to Long Island and during one excursion, for the very first time – I was on the Bay, on the Long Island Sound – I noticed the beauty that was around me, and it was so overwhelming I could hardly look at it. It was the first time, mind you I was 34 years old, but it was the first time that I actually saw beauty.
Back then, before that moment when I started to wake up, I wasn’t open to experiencing the mystery of life. ‘I don’t know’ allows the mystery of life to come in. When I was a child I had that. With my struggle to know God as a child, I was somewhat willing to say I don’t know, I can’t understand God. So I tried in my young brain to figure it out. I would ask: what’s eternity? God is always there, and was always there and will always be there and what does that mean? My small little mind couldn’t grasp it. It was all so mysterious. I think the awe that we sit in as a child is the ‘I don’t know’ mind. But year after year after year of needing to know drowns that out. And sitting on the cushion brings that back alive.
Wanting to know before I know is wishing my life away, which is what I did a lot. Being in the future, not being present to what is NOW, to what I’m experiencing right NOW. In fact, all I can know about is what I experience. Zen tells me this all the time. Roshi tells me this all the time. But I was so afraid that I couldn’t even show up for my own life experiences back then. I used drugs, alcohol, sex, things, activities, money, men, work – anything to escape from NOT KNOWING. And then running from that not knowing put me even deeper into the pit of not knowing, but in a very nihilistic way, not in a Zen way.
While in that pit of not knowing I was also not seeing, not hearing, not smelling, not tasting, not touching, not thinking. In a word, NOT LIVING. Though those words are the same as in the heart sutra, this senseless state of being is completely opposite the sunyata, or emptiness, that the heart sutra talks about. Back then it was more about nihilism than emptiness.
Nihilism is entrapment; emptiness is freedom.
So, facing the mystery of life evokes fear: the fear of dying and the fear that I am not what I think I am. Sitting on the cushion, and breathing, and being in touch with my body, and my breath, is about facing my fear. It’s a first step toward freedom from the tyranny of MYSELF.
(to be continued…)
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