The Nut of Our Problems

Zen might be too big a hammer to crack the nut of our problems. And that is fine.

Some of us need some relaxation, a way of grounding ourselves, or perhaps of tuning in with our breath and our bodies. This is all great stuff: practically superpowers, every one of 'em.

But zazen, the meditation practice of Zen, has its beady eye on a different prize.

This is where it gets tricky, because the next sensible question is "oh what's that then?".

I will say "Reality", just for fun, with a capital to show that it's a Thing. Not that what we currently inhabit now isn't Reality. The zazen reality is just the same: it feels, smells, looks and means the same thing...except that normally we aren't looking, smelling, feeling and generally grokking* the Reality we are in now. What's more we're often not very now about it either...Add to this the fact that Zen has some interesting threads of its own to bring to the tapestry of our experience: impermanence, interdependence and co-dependent arising.

Zazen is not looking to tinker on the edges of our being, but to overturn our whole habitual approach to being. Sometimes we are not ready for that. I was ready, or so I thought. Then I wasn't. Now I'm not sure, but I can't seem to stop Zen practice whether I want to or not. Formal group practice has become less influential for me, and a "householder" approach with mostly lone zazen, has taken over.

Charlotte Joko Beck, a thoroughly practical Zen teacher, wrote "Don't practice unless you feel there's nothing else you can do. Instead step up your surfing or your physics or your music. If that satisfies you, do it. Don't practice unless you feel you must." (pp 52, "Everyday Zen".) 

There were a few things for me that still needed exploring: fatherhood, martial arts, writing, trying to get a decent job...

What turned (and turns me still) back onto the road of zazen is a keen sense of mortality, fuelled by some real life encounters, and some good old existential anxieties.

If we do start to practice zazen, we might get a glimpse of just how often life does overturn: it overturns in every instant, in fact it is never not overturning. The trick then is: how are we to live, given this incredible Reality?

We might also come to Zen practice if our usual sense of being has overturned all by itself...

Zazen is a formal practice, a physical way of sitting, with a particular viewpoint on what the sitting is for: strictly we do zazen for its own effect and not to achieve some "result".

But sometimes zazen or something very like it can steal upon us in moments of our day. Perhaps we catch the flicker of a thought just before it leaps into the centre stage of our consciousness, or perhaps we hear a sound, maybe birdsong or the clatter of  a dish, that seems not to come from outside but from an expanded sense of inside...

Like all schools or traditions, Zen likes to make claims for the efficacy of its teachings, "If you do zazen like we recommend then you can claim to be this". And maybe there's some truth to that. I've heard it put like this: awakening is an accident, and zazen makes you more accident-prone. 

But there are always subversive teachings: like that of Nan Chuan who was asked by Chao Chu "What is Tao?". He answered, "Everyday mind is Tao". "Should we try to direct ourselves towards it or not?" continued Chao Chu. "If you try to direct yourself toward it, you go away from it."

So whether we practice zazen or we don't, the very existence of zazen points towards something we could call "everyday mind". As soon as someone says "everyday mind" however, we probably feel a million miles away from it. Ignore it, pretend to ignore it, or strive for it wholeheartedly: who knows the difference?

What I find these days is that zazen is less a seeking for everyday mind, and more an expression of it. But it's not the only one...

It's all a bit mysterious. And perhaps what we may crave (and need) is comfort, rather than some wild goose chase along spiritual or existential lines.

We don't know what the nut of these times needs to crack it. But maybe a goddamned universe-

sized hammer will do the trick.

*word used a lot in the sixties which I think deserves a renaissance which means to understand at a fundamental level, at a the level of immersion...rather like that other sixties word "dig" as in "Yeah man I dig it"...

"Harlan Pepper if you don't stop namin'nuts..."