Boredom rocks (in zazen and relationships), and it isn't boring.
Fun, I just wrote that while listening to a talk by Brad Warner, and immediately after I wrote it I heard him say "Boredeom is good." Doesn't mean we agree on anything, but cute lil coincidence to start with.
I've been enjoying listening to this podcast by Brad Warner from his visit to Atlanta. I often REALLY enjoy his stuff - and by "enjoy his stuff" I think I'm referring to an experience of positively enjoying and gaining language for my own experience. Not necessarily his language... but it often feels like a good conversation.
So something came up in his talk on his blog I wanted to briefly mention. He chats for some time about boredom's relationship to zen, and references one of his first written pieces for the web as "Zen is boring."
I sit some zazen, still. Previously while sitting (and it still comes up now) I realize I sit with this expectation of sitting's goodness for me. Not only will sitting zazen solve all my problems and insecurities, fix my bad posture and improve my health, I'll concentrate better and improve my relationships...but I'll know that it's happening at the time. I'll recognize the taste of that process while sitting.
Yeah, right.
Instead, my thoughts are often more like: "Is this that magical experience? It doesn't feel like it. It feels like I'm just fucking sitting here. I'm not sitting in some magical way, some enlightened process where I recognize my own enlightenment in the process... I'm sitting all wrong! Instead of sitting "correctly," I'm just fucking sitting here, well, just like I would sit here (how horrible). However that is. Well, how is that again? Oh, I guess that is this. This is it."
Often that experience seems pleasant - somewhere between transitioning "actively" and being transitioned, where I seem to drop off knowing not only whether I'm doing it or it's happening to me, but the difference between the two. I dunno what it's really about.
I've started dating someone (Natasha Salazar, if you know her) recently, and there's a lot of wonderful things about that experience. But I feel, at this point, there's some link between something I'm really enjoying about that experience and something I enjoy (but is not necessarily comforting in the "knowing" sense, sometimes) about zazen. She and I often seem to not know what's going on at all. Everything from "how do we kiss?" to "what will we do when she moves to Florida?" Nearly every sentence, it efels, we're meeting in this place of not knowing. The alternative's interesting: pretending to know, or perhaps more accurately, to just go ahead and "cheat" the depth of the experience and "believe" something, or go with something. "I don't know how to kiss her, so I'm going to go with THIS." Moving away from not-knowing mind...because it's uncomfortable, in a certain sense! I mean, the prospect of dating her intensely for two weeks before she moves to Florida's brings up feelings of "holy crap, this may be BIG missing feelings really soon!" The 'alternatives' to not knowing are many, in a sense...but none of them really appeal to me.
In part, they're not really appealing because, well, they're kinda boring. I mean, she and I "decide" our personalities, our stories, and how we will interact with each other... and they perform those roles, roughly knowing what we're doing...maybe adding or taking away something here or there. Ugh, no thanks. In a sense, though, it seems I'm pretty conditioned, in that it seems I have habits to "cheat" and move away from not knowing.
Knowing is kinda boring, really. Not knowing, but still "having to say/do something," is actually quite empty of idea and enjoyable. I don't mean to suggest that for me the experience dating Natasha is the same as sitting zazen... because, in large part, that would mean I'd be able to put a finger on either of those two experiences, which I have a hard time doing. There something very enjoyable about the funny process of trusting and getting to know each other - and our MILLION differences that in a sense seem to create opportunities of not knowing. And there's a similar feeling in sitting.
What is our relationship "supposed to be" given our situation, our feelings, etc.? What is sitting supposed to feel like, moment to moment, given my experiences, "spiritual ripeness" (whatever the fuck that is), etc.? In either case, pretending to know something would be to assume I could also know a HUGE number of other things... What precisely are my feelings (especially given that they seem to be changing all the time)? What IS our situation, really (especially given that they...you guessed it!)? And how ripe am I and how would I know that?
A fun question to end with, in a very concrete and physical sense: How long can you kiss someone with a mind of "not knowing how" before you settle on "like THIS?" How long can you sit zazen with a mind that doesn't settle on a boxed description and plan? Quantity of time is a kinda ridiculous question in a lot of ways... but it seems very interesting and full of meaning as a lens to point out how I can become "dissatisfied": seemingly by experiencing life through a series of plans and good ideas about the next moment or next year, carrying the plans with a mind that purports to know, and then comparing where I am/will be with my idea of where I am.
Not knowing, moment after moment, often has a flavor for me of ... deep, gross and unexpected like forever digging in really fertile soil as it teems with life.
The newest "entertaining" story or plan about life never seems to taste as good as the newest, living, unboxable moment.
I've been enjoying listening to this podcast by Brad Warner from his visit to Atlanta. I often REALLY enjoy his stuff - and by "enjoy his stuff" I think I'm referring to an experience of positively enjoying and gaining language for my own experience. Not necessarily his language... but it often feels like a good conversation.
So something came up in his talk on his blog I wanted to briefly mention. He chats for some time about boredom's relationship to zen, and references one of his first written pieces for the web as "Zen is boring."
I sit some zazen, still. Previously while sitting (and it still comes up now) I realize I sit with this expectation of sitting's goodness for me. Not only will sitting zazen solve all my problems and insecurities, fix my bad posture and improve my health, I'll concentrate better and improve my relationships...but I'll know that it's happening at the time. I'll recognize the taste of that process while sitting.
Yeah, right.
Instead, my thoughts are often more like: "Is this that magical experience? It doesn't feel like it. It feels like I'm just fucking sitting here. I'm not sitting in some magical way, some enlightened process where I recognize my own enlightenment in the process... I'm sitting all wrong! Instead of sitting "correctly," I'm just fucking sitting here, well, just like I would sit here (how horrible). However that is. Well, how is that again? Oh, I guess that is this. This is it."
Often that experience seems pleasant - somewhere between transitioning "actively" and being transitioned, where I seem to drop off knowing not only whether I'm doing it or it's happening to me, but the difference between the two. I dunno what it's really about.
I've started dating someone (Natasha Salazar, if you know her) recently, and there's a lot of wonderful things about that experience. But I feel, at this point, there's some link between something I'm really enjoying about that experience and something I enjoy (but is not necessarily comforting in the "knowing" sense, sometimes) about zazen. She and I often seem to not know what's going on at all. Everything from "how do we kiss?" to "what will we do when she moves to Florida?" Nearly every sentence, it efels, we're meeting in this place of not knowing. The alternative's interesting: pretending to know, or perhaps more accurately, to just go ahead and "cheat" the depth of the experience and "believe" something, or go with something. "I don't know how to kiss her, so I'm going to go with THIS." Moving away from not-knowing mind...because it's uncomfortable, in a certain sense! I mean, the prospect of dating her intensely for two weeks before she moves to Florida's brings up feelings of "holy crap, this may be BIG missing feelings really soon!" The 'alternatives' to not knowing are many, in a sense...but none of them really appeal to me.
In part, they're not really appealing because, well, they're kinda boring. I mean, she and I "decide" our personalities, our stories, and how we will interact with each other... and they perform those roles, roughly knowing what we're doing...maybe adding or taking away something here or there. Ugh, no thanks. In a sense, though, it seems I'm pretty conditioned, in that it seems I have habits to "cheat" and move away from not knowing.
Knowing is kinda boring, really. Not knowing, but still "having to say/do something," is actually quite empty of idea and enjoyable. I don't mean to suggest that for me the experience dating Natasha is the same as sitting zazen... because, in large part, that would mean I'd be able to put a finger on either of those two experiences, which I have a hard time doing. There something very enjoyable about the funny process of trusting and getting to know each other - and our MILLION differences that in a sense seem to create opportunities of not knowing. And there's a similar feeling in sitting.
What is our relationship "supposed to be" given our situation, our feelings, etc.? What is sitting supposed to feel like, moment to moment, given my experiences, "spiritual ripeness" (whatever the fuck that is), etc.? In either case, pretending to know something would be to assume I could also know a HUGE number of other things... What precisely are my feelings (especially given that they seem to be changing all the time)? What IS our situation, really (especially given that they...you guessed it!)? And how ripe am I and how would I know that?
A fun question to end with, in a very concrete and physical sense: How long can you kiss someone with a mind of "not knowing how" before you settle on "like THIS?" How long can you sit zazen with a mind that doesn't settle on a boxed description and plan? Quantity of time is a kinda ridiculous question in a lot of ways... but it seems very interesting and full of meaning as a lens to point out how I can become "dissatisfied": seemingly by experiencing life through a series of plans and good ideas about the next moment or next year, carrying the plans with a mind that purports to know, and then comparing where I am/will be with my idea of where I am.
Not knowing, moment after moment, often has a flavor for me of ... deep, gross and unexpected like forever digging in really fertile soil as it teems with life.
The newest "entertaining" story or plan about life never seems to taste as good as the newest, living, unboxable moment.
Labels: zen
posted by Mike Dolan Fliss at
3/16/2008 02:48:00 PM
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