We just come back from some holidays, a week spent outside what we consider our everyday life routine, in other words, a great opportunity for our practice, at least in the way I see it and love to practice myself. First, what do I mean by practising? What for?
For me practising, implies Zen or meditation practice. Studying, understanding and developing ways which are geared towards pacifying the mind when too busy, contemplating the mind dynamics and how we relate to them and letting go of the various mental holds which interpose between me and reality. That is what Zen practice, among other things, can be for me and, holidays can become great opportunities for this practice/training, I find. When we have less of a routine to follow and somehow, we flow with unfamiliar situations and people, we enter the perfect arena for this kind of practice. What for? To end the sense of unsatisfaction that can overcast our life experience.
There are 3 elements in particular I have been studying in these days away. The first one is how I dealt with the “lack” of space and time for my usual sitting practice. The second one is seeing how easily I can get caught in the world of duality, comparison, good, bad, right and wrong and the third one is to remain grounded and balanced when I felt physically unwell.
Sharing an hotel room meant not having the space and the time I would normally have for my sitting practice. That could have led to frustration had I stuck with some kind of fixed ideas about having to sit to meditate. First opportunity to practice letting go, absolutely letting go of any mental holds and, if at all possible, allow the mind to be creative, to find different ways. So, each morning, I went out for a 30 minutes run which turned into my daily meditation practice. A beautiful way to get the body moving, waking up and practice presence. Same principles that we bring on the cushion, remain present without getting pulled into the mental stories, allow things to simply arise and pass. When running, doing exactly these same things plus, not getting pulled by what happens around, simply remained centred and grounded in the body. When running, simply running. What for? To develop grounding in what is real rather than being pulled by what is imaginary and speculative.
Getting caught in duality, in comparing things rather than just be with what is moment to moment. One thing I noticed is how the mind tends to constantly create comparisons. When eating something, when seeing something, when interacting with people. The mind immediately compares this meal with another one, see one place as being more beautiful than another one, a person as being more or less something than another one. However, is that really so? Can this be conducive to unsatisfaction? I think so. This meal is not as good as the other one, I am not happy. This viewpoint is not as dramatic as the previous one, I feel a bit disappointed. This person is not as friendly as the one we met earlier, why some people are so difficult? Things are as they are, all the time, moment to moment. When we stop analysing and comparing, before the mind kicks in and takes us into its imaginary world, we can simply experience things as they are, unconditionally, simply as they are, moment to moment.
In the last half a day of vacation, I felt unwell. Great opportunity to practice acceptance, deeply listening to what the body needs, realise very clearly that things are not always the way we want and that resisting this very truth leads to deep suffering. I felt weak and all I tried to do was not to resist that, just being weak and look after myself. I could easily witness what arose in the mind; resistance, non-acceptance, disappointment, feeling the victim of some imaginary external force. None of these things are real and can help. All that was real was the weakness and there is where I tried to focus my attention and care. Becoming intimate with that weakness meant allowing the body to recuperate in its own time, not forcing anything and doing what felt right to care for that particular situation. Lots of sleep followed, all that was required to make the feel of weakness go. I realise that one can be very curious and open to very unpleasant situations without creating or allowing that extra layer of stress and anxiety which can make things feel even worse.
There are no two things as life experiences and practice, they are exactly the same thing. We don’t need to wait for anything in particular to practice, this moment is practice, this moment is an opportunity to practice pacifying the mind, contemplate the mind and letting go of anything that interpose between you and the reality of things. Just enjoy the ongoing exploration as it can end that sense of unsatisfaction and incompleteness that we might sometimes experience.
Zen Mindfulness Cambridge Zenways Italia 