Sunday, March 22, 2009

Fallen off the Bike


There been a lot of blogging in my circle of Dharma Bro's about zazen, bike riding and falling down. I often feel a pressure to right good news in my blog. Positive outlook stuff and successes. Coincident with this planning is a negative thing or failure I'm trying to hide, I think. A shame at not being "together."

We just bought a piece of land down by the coast. No water view, but 2 acres with oaks about a quarter mile from an unbelievably large Copano bay. Since my work was shutdown this week, I spent the last 4 days down there doing basic work on the small house/shack that's on the land.

Went down with full intention of lots of quite-seclusion meditation, working on my rakusu. Instead I spent most of the time working, only a single sort meditation event. I didn't work on my rakusu at all. I feel quite ashamed about all this. My friend Just Zazen (see blog list in sidebar) wrote recently about falling off his zazen 'bike' for 36 hours. My advice to him was to know it's okay and to take a next step. My internal critic is much harsher on me. A critic I should have "left by the stream" (see Uku's blog) years and years ago, but still carry around.

Strive for a next moment that is more in balance, but forget fairy tale Zen.

Sit for balance.

Shame is only useful on very rare ocassions.

It's okay.

3 comments:

SlowZen said...

Your OK, just remember to persevere brightly!

Still spinning,
Jordan

Just Zazen said...

Where did you get that picture of me? I'm hoping to mail you that thing next week. Thanks for your support!

Lauren said...

Just,

And thanks for your practice. I think its very important to people who may just starting some interest in Zen to see real people struggle and persevere under Zen's mantel, so I am grateful you are willing to write about your triumphs, troubles, and days that are just fine.