Tonight was a special night at the temple for me. Although I have been practicing, I haven't felt in touch with the path for about a month. Something has been off - I haven't really felt anything I could call the spirit of zen. But washing dishes in semi-silence this evening, I had that feeling again of actually knowing and feeling something about what zen is.
It's funny that just a few minutes before that, I was sending text messages in the dining hall. I'd become a bit too cavalier, not being mindful of what the space is for. While feeling truly blessed to have the Zen Center in my life, I'd also begun taking the temple for granted. And while thinking a great deal about building sangha, it's become a bit too much of a social space for me - I've often felt like I'm going there to hang out. Not that there's anything innately wring with that! That social space is wonderful and important, but so is washing dishes, so is slowing down, so is being silent and just being. Come to think of it, all those elements are really very much what I want of the Zen Center as a social space. Just being with people, in a quiet way, just sharing presence, is a deeply social activity.
So I hope I can keep myself focused, not just on being physically present there, not only in reading books for some upcoming study group, and not only making friends, but in really being there to feel and cultivate something called zen. And I hope to start writing this blog once again, which, having been feeling rather inauthentic recently, I have not been able to write. These phases are all part of the growing process I suppose...
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