Day 17: 2 steps forward, 1 step, well, the staircase collapsed...

So, I kind of got shattered on Monday night. I was mentioning that in some ways, it's kind of comforting to know that though we can't control the world around us, we can control how we respond to it. A couple of people pointed out to me, in the gentlest way they could that, in fact, we can't really control that either. Our selves, our responses to this life, are equally affected by this world that we can't control.
This totally bummed me out- not so much that I can't control my response to this world but that this "thing" that I thought I had "figured out," this apparent basic tenet of this practice, was not true. And I was left totally confused and disheartened because I didn't know what to do about it. If this wasn't true, what else wasn't true? And, honestly, what did I know anymore? And, why bother knowing when what you think you know, you totally don't know?
Then I started worrying about this blog and what I was writing. Had I been misleading all 12 of you followers? (Ha, that's a joke to my lovely faithfuls... I know you're not reading this for advice on zen practice!). But I actually was kind of worried about what I was writing and if I was telling people things that weren't true.
But then I remembered all the times when I was just starting out and how helpful it was to hear about people struggling with practice. I remembered how encouraging it was to hear someone talk about something they experienced that I remembered experiencing; or to hear about something and not understand it at first, and then later totally get what they were talking about. And I realized that I'm kind of in the middle of something and that I'm always going to be in the middle of something. What I am understanding now is what I am understanding now. And at another point, this understanding will fall away too.
And that's when I realized that this isn't even a path. I want it to be a path. I want to make progress. I want to understand it, have it fit, to be at ease with it, master it, probably even control it. Being shattered tonight wasn't about not understanding, it was about feeling at the mercy of this practice, of this life.
And here's where my I bring in my experience as a surfer... Ha!
So, when you "wipe out" in surfing, when the wave controls you instead of you riding it, you often get shoved down underwater, kind of trapped in a world without oxygen. Your gut response is to swim to the surface, kick and paddle with all your might to escape this underwater world. But guess what happens when you do that? All that kicking and paddling uses up all the oxygen in your lungs and you run out of breath before you get to the surface. Guess what you're supposed to do? Just.. lay... still. When you lay still, you float to the surface. Your breath, that little reserve of oxygen in your lungs, acts like a flotation device and delivers you right where you need to be, effortlessly. 
I can keep going with this parallel but I think it's pretty obvious. Darn it- this world is an ocean. It is so much bigger than I am. I can't control it, it has no beginning and no end, it is definitely not a path and the more I just float in it, let it cradle and throw me, the less time I'll spend being held down by it.
Now, how my lovely 8 foot surfboard fits into this analogy, I still have to figure out...