So, I’ve always had a problem with the whole “there is no self” part of all of this. I exist. Sorry, I just do, I’m not going to believe you when you tell me that there is no me. And then, with this whole “giving up of the self” thing? I just figured “Nope, not gonna do that either. Why would I give up myself? It’s who I am. Where would I be if I didn’t have myself. That’s just weird.” But tonight I sat zazen during the dharma talk for the first time ever and I think, but I’m not sure, that this is just a matter of semantics, of what we mean when we talk about “the self.”
I’ve always watched the practitioners listen to the dharma talks sitting zazen and thought, “huh, maybe I should be doing that.” But I love the dharma talks so much, love watching the speaker, engaging with them, that I’ve never wanted to sit zazen during the talk. Tonight, though, I decided that if I sat zazen during the dharma talk on Wednesday night, then I wouldn’t have to sit zazen on Wednesday afternoon. So, strictly out of laziness, I meditated during the lecture.
First of all, it was really interesting to sit zazen. Because I was sitting zazen, I was just hearing Paul’s words. Then I started to think about how it related to me, then took a breath and just let it be. Then something didn’t make sense and I started to consider it, think about how I could “fit” it into something, make sense of it and I realized I was limiting what Paul was saying instead of just being present to it. So I breathed in and listened more and again, just heard what he was saying.
Then I realized how much I assert myself into the dharma talk when I don’t sit zazen during the talk. Usually during the talk, this is what goes on in my head: speaker says something cool, I think about if it makes sense and try to relate it to my life. Speaker says confusing stuff, I wrinkle my nose, cock my head, look up to the right. Basically, speaker talks, I respond, relate, apply, think. In my head, it makes sense to relate to what the speaker is saying. But tonight I realized that by interpreting the dharma talk I was narrowing it. I’m not saying you just let his words flow through you like a river, you actually experience them as they come. But what you don’t do is try to grab them, make them fit with you, put them in to something because when you do that, you immediately narrow your experience.
And then I thought about my “self.” Even though I like myself, when I keep asserting myself into things, I’m limiting my experience to what my ego thinks of it. And then I realized, I think, that when people at the zen center talk about the self, they’re referring to all these thoughts and assertions and attempts to make things relate to us. It’s our perceptions and histories and habits of mind that they’re asking us to give up. These thoughts and perceptions are what cause us suffering and so that’s why we do those things that feel like we’re giving up our selves.
Like bowing, actually physically letting go of our desire to stand up, to stand out, to physically assert ourselves, that’s practice in giving in, in letting the self go, not so we become like everyone else but so that we can open up to our experience instead of tunneling through it with our narrow selves’ interpretation of it. And chanting, doing things without thinking (which is so TOTALLY foreign to everything I’ve ever valued or been taught) isn’t a brainwashing thing, it isn’t a give up who you are and become like us it’s a Hey, all that individuality that feels like you’re making sense of the world and experiencing it is actually narrowing your view of the world.
So, if giving up the self means giving up all these things that narrow my existence and cause me unnecessary suffering then I’m all for it. And to accept that the self doesn’t exist because it’s just a bunch of thoughts then I’ll go for that too. I still haven’t quite figured out, though, who I’ll be without these thoughts and perceptions. It feels like there’s still something left after all those thoughts and perceptions float away. I just don’t know what it is but I’m pretty sure I still want to hold on to it.
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