I give in Part 4: It's your breakfast

So, I got to lecture late, but guess what the speaker’s topic was? Continued practice! I was kind of excited. I had just discovered that I needed to be doing continued practice and here was Vikki, about to tell me what I needed to do to do that.

Her talk was really good and I recommend that you listen to it online. However, I can’t remember what she said about continued practice because about two thirds of the way through her lecture, she somehow incorporated that darn koan about stepping off the 100 foot pole! (I swear, she and Paul must be in cahoots on this one.) She described Suzuki Roshi’s response to the koan (I’m paraphrasing):

In the morning, my wife hits the clappers and calls me to breakfast, calls me off my 100 foot pole. It is easy, if I answer yes, she will stop hitting the clappers and I will go to eat breakfast. But I do not answer yes. Instead I want to say to her, “What are you doing? Don’t you see that I am busy? Don’t you see that I am doing important things?” and so I don’t answer, and she continues to hit the clappers and I stay on my 100 foot pole. It is simple, step off the pole and go eat your breakfast.

And I realize that that’s what I’m doing. I’m sitting on this pole of fear, rationalizing it by making it seem important: I need more sleep so I should skip zazen, I’m only going to practice the parts of zen that benefit my classroom, I’ll step off when I feel like I’m ready to step off. So here I sit, on this 100 foot pole, afraid to step off, for breakfast?

Because that’s what zazen has been for me: breakfast. It’s what I need to nourish me in the morning and to keep me going throughout the day. Unfortunately, my fears around it have led me to set it up as some adversary to my life, some force that will suck me in as soon as I commit to it. But really, it’s what makes me happy, and the pole is what’s keeping me from enjoying it.

So, I’m stepping off. I don’t think it’s so much that I want breakfast, it’s more that I see that I’m the one who made up the pole. And honestly, the pole really isn’t that great anyway and what’s below it- a community of people committed to benefiting all beings- that’s way better than sitting alone on top of a 100 foot pole.