I recently returned from a silent meditation retreat at
Spirit Rock Meditation Center in northern Marin County – nine days of
alternating between sitting meditation and walking meditation, with daily
instruction and Dharma Talks, or lectures about Buddha’s teachings and how to
apply them to your life.
This was the second time I’ve done this particular retreat,
and I’m contemplating some longer retreats in the future.
I went to India on a month-long Pilgrimage to the Buddhist holy sites in 2001. It was a transformational experience. When I returned, I
told my Dharma Teacher – Gil Fronsdale - that I was feeling drawn to a monastic
experience. He suggested I start with some ten-day retreats. It’s very much
like me to jump in at the deep end without considering whether I know how to
swim. So I’m grateful that was available to remind me, as I often need
reminding, to keep my feet on the ground while my head is in the clouds. So now
I do retreats.
Anyway, during one of the Dharma Talks teacher Eugene Cash
quoted Suzuki Roshi (founder of the San Francisco Zen Center) on the nature of
enlightenment, saying “Realization is imperfection without anxiety.”
Realization is imperfection without anxiety.
Those words struck me. They echo a theme I frequently come
back to with a simplicity that I greatly admire.
Truth is we’re not perfect. Our work isn’t perfect. Our
relationships aren’t perfect. Our lives are just plane not perfect.
Unfortunately, this is a very difficult truth for a lot of people.
We’ve recently come through the holidays once again and I
was struck by the number of people who were grievously stressed because they
felt like they needed the holidays to be perfect and they couldn’t achieve
that.
Sure, many of us give great lip-service to the idea that we’re
not perfect, while at the same time suffering the symptoms of some form of
perfectionism, i.e. imperfection with anxiety.
I confronted this a lot during the days and nights of the
retreat. The form of meditation I practice is simple (that’s one of the things
I like about it). But it can also be very difficult, depending on the degree to
which I accept the imperfection of my meditation practice.
In this practice, you focus on your breathing – very simple
– except that the mind isn’t really interested in doing that. The mind prefers
to wander all over the place, rehashing conversations I had days, weeks,
months, years ago, contemplating the future, playing music, wondering about my
cat, my financial situation, my therapy practice, etc. – basically anything and
everything.
So, in meditation, when you notice the mind has wandered
away, you simply bring your focus back to your breathing. Sometimes this
happens quickly. Sometimes I notice I’ve been lost in some sort of imagined
scenario for quite some time, and then come back to my breathing. The
instruction is to do this firmly, but gently and without rebuke.
Some meditations can be relatively relaxed and quiet. Some
are like having a brightly lit romper room and Souza marches playing in my
head. And on retreat there are the standard aches and pains that go long with
long periods of sitting meditation (mostly my back starts t hurt).
Often when I notice this happening, I just refocus and it’s
no big deal. But often I also experience the feeling that I’m somehow doing it
wrong. My thinking mind reinforces
this with thoughts like ‘I’m not a good meditater, I’m messing this up, I can’t
get it right, I’m wasting my time and money on this retreat,’ and so on. Then
it starts reviewing all the other things I feel like I don’t get right in my
life.
A few minutes of this and I start feeling frustrated and
depressed – imperfection with anxiety.
Then something shifted about half way through the retreat. I
started contemplating Suzuki Roshi’s message – imperfection without anxiety.
The more I contemplated this, the easier my meditations got.
Sure I was still having the standard aches and pains.
Sometimes it was all I could do to just sit still. Sometimes I couldn’t even do
that. My mind continued to wander around, as is its function.
But I didn’t really care so much. I just kept repeating like
a mantra “imperfection without anxiety.”
I also realized I can look around at my whole life and do
the same thing – imperfection without anxiety. I can apply this anywhere that my
mind says I should be dissatisfied – my therapy practice is slow, or I’m too
busy, my home needs repair, my kitchen is messy, this or that thing is or isn’t
happening the way I want it to.
It’s all the same.
