Ango Days 19-26

The strongest part of my Ango practice continues to be my renewed commitment to zazen. This past week, I sat every day except Day 21 (Friday 17) and Day 25 (Tuesday 21). On Day 21, I fully intended to sit, but sleep overtook me. I came through my front door intensely hungry and made myself a meal of instant pierogies, salad greens, and sautéed vegetables. Perhaps it was eating a large meal after a period of intense hunger, or the amount of energy required to digest a fiber-heavy meal, but I immediately became sleepy. I lay down on the couch for "a minute" and woke up two hours later, ready to go to bed and sleep for the rest of the night. But the next day, the first thing I did was sit. I have continued to do morning rather than evening sits from that day onward. Yesterday, Day 25, was the first day of the Ango that I said to myself, "I am not going to sit today." There is a time around my period where the tenderness in my abdomen and jaggedness in my head makes me averse to sitting. But this morning, once again, I started my day with zazen.

Though I continue to miss an occasional day of sitting, I am always ready to resume sitting the next day, without any struggle. Zazen is once again becoming an integral part of my day. It has gotten easier, with less resistance and struggle from my mind against the practice. But with the reduced struggle, there is now a vague sense of anxiety and a feeling of being "stuck." I feel like my practice is "going nowhere" and like my mind is a stagnant pool. The old hunger for kensho is there and where some months ago I felt I was in the borderlands of waking up, now I feel walled off from the possibility. Sometimes I wonder if the practice of shikantaza is too passive, without the energy of holding a question, but at other times, what seems to be going on is a struggle with the part of me that wants to be in control and to feel like it is accomplishing something, the part that blocks awakening. So I continue to sit.

All other Ango commitments are on tottering steps these days, stumbling, but not abandoned. I have met with Jundo on Skype once for interview, and though Daibh and I have not done either of the formal Practice Partner exercises, we continue to support one another's practice. I have missed the last two Saturday intensive sits, which to me is the second most important commitment of the Ango next to daily zazen. I intend to "make them up" when I can, but for now, just focus on not missing any more of them.

I am trying, and struggling, with my commitment to kind speech and thought, and mindful work with the spirit of samu. I now have two and a half weeks left at my current job, and it is bringing up many conflicting feelings. I feel sadness and loss over the friends and comrades I will leave behind, the humor and drama and compassion in action I experience there. I also feel a huge sense of relief and an increasing flow of joy. I know I am at a major transition point in my life; a long journey has come to an end, and I am ready for it.

Yet somehow it is still difficult to maintain a joyful mind and avoid wrong thought and speech at work, much less approach each work day with the humility and discipline of samu. Resentments that have festered for the 1.5 years I have worked there are bubbling to the surface, as well as anger, fear, and concern for my fellow staff members due to the ongoing management problems there. I want to leave the job with a positive and grateful attitude; despite my frustrations, the experience has been more positive than negative. But perhaps it is hard to so easily let go of the frustrations that build when you have been required to submit in silence to people with more power over you even when you wanted to question or speak out. Whatever it is, my workday is characterized more by a desire to get through the day as quickly as possible and an almost conscious desire not to be mentally present to it.

It is the same with the massive weekend of house chores I completed on Sunday. There was a sense of aggression, anxiety, and urgency, to get it all done in time. It is hard to enjoy the simple act of cleaning when so much has to be done in so little time. I used to find house chores a very easy venue for mindfulness. I enjoy the simple physical motions of cleaning, and the process of watching dirty and messy areas become neat and ordered. I think the lack of mindfulness comes from a lack of energy and having to push oneself through a seemingly endless stream of "work."

I am so grateful that my mother and stepfather are allowing me to stay with them for the holidays with no need to pay rent or work, only to help out with food expenses, which I should be able to do with savings from my last paycheck, returned security deposit on my apartment, and small but significant dividend check from a family business. The drain of my work and daily commute, and the demands of caring for a home as a solitary breadwinner and homemaker, have left me feeling out of touch with myself for an extended period of time. What do I believe? What are my motivations in my practice and anything else? What do I really want in life? I do not know the answers to these questions, and am hopeful a 2-3 month "sabbatical" will allow me to rest and renew and come to a clear sense of direction.

I am also hopeful the sabbatical will allow me to commit myself more fully to this Ango. Because while I am doing the practices, if somewhat inconsistently, my mind and heart are not focused. My daily life has no sense of the sacred or the focus that was there in the first few days of the Ango. And this too goes back to my motivation in practice being unclear. I do not know what I want or why I am still practicing; I want to wake up, to experience kensho, but what is that? My ego wants something it does not understand, for reasons I cannot even clarify.

It is my plan when I am back home to replace the time and structure currently provided by my work with samu and other formal practice periods. One thing I would really like to do to help my mom and stepdad, and at the same time help my practice, is to every day spend a set amount of time focused on one particular domestic task. Perhaps one day I will dust surfaces, another day clean windows, another day clean bathrooms, another day clean floors. I will be able to enjoy these acts without the exhaustion and stress that come with working full time and having to do all the cleaning oneself in a designated and limited frame of time, after a work week has already depleted one's energies. I will also be able to help my mom and stepdad have more time to enjoy their weekends after their work weeks, by not having to spend so much of their time cleaning the house. I look forward being able to connect my actions to a community I feel part of, the microcommunity of an immediate family. I am hopeful now that I am moving back home where my family is that I will never again have to experience the isolation and alienation I have experienced up here.