Andy's Mind

Because I’m in Warsaw for three days I dropped into the Kannon’s zendo this morning. Instead of the normal morning practice it was an end of a two-day sesshin and I joined them for the last three rounds of zazen separated by kinhin. Very interesting experience, after almost half a year of sitting alone it was very encouraging. However, the most surprising thing was how short the 45 minutes periods of zazen felt. I remember waiting for the bell to sound a year ago – now I was almost disappointed when it did, even though it was not an easy sitting (I was drowning in thoughts too frequently). I’ll have to make an effort and come there again when I’ll be in Warsaw.

I had an interesting experience today. My new headphones have just arrived and, having them unpacked and connected to my PowerBook, I settled down to enjoy the experience of my favorite tunes in high quality. I reached for a mug of tea to make my indulgence complete and… I spilled about half of it all over the table and onto my bellowed PowerBook. (more…)

My zazen this morning wasn’t good. I didn’t sleep well, some strange, work-related nightmares haunted me all night. When I sat on the cushion I couldn’t stop the torrent of thoughts flooding my brain. I was upset my meditation is bad.

And then it occurred to me that my thinking about my meditation reflects my overall state of mind, it’s not an objective measure or judgment, it’s just another drop in the torrent of thoughts.

My mind is not my thoughts. My zazen is not my assessment of my zazen.

The late American astronomer and writer, Carl Sagan, wrote this in his most famous book – “Cosmos“:

“A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called “leaves”) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person – perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.”

I always loved books and in this passage Sagan managed, I think, to pinpoint this magic connection between the reader and the writer that attracted me to read so many of them. And it is true for any form of writing, including a blog. I speak now to you, in your head – even though you don’t know my voice and probably never met me. Yes, this is a proof that we can work magic – and Internet, which despite Flash animations and video streaming remains largely the world of text is a new incarnation of that magic.

Let’s spread it, let’s upkeep the ages of tradition, let’s keep these silent voices – let’s write.