As part of my participation in the practice period, I’m taking a class with Paul Haller, the abbot of the zen center. The class that I’m taking is focused around what you can do to support yourself to practice what you do at the zen center in your everyday life. In class on Thursday, Paul talked about Sila: things that you do to help promote your practice, that help you to be present when you’re out there in the world. He asked us questions like: are you getting enough sleep? How do you feel when you exercise? How do you feel when you eat a lot? How do you feel when you eat a little? What tasks do you do that leave you feeling mentally exhausted? What tasks do you do that leave you feeling mentally invigorated?
I left class thinking about the answers to these questions; aware that I feel better when I exercise and that, even though I love the thought of a big meal, I actually do feel better when I eat only what I’m hungry for. I also realized that I am mentally exhausted when I try to control the kids. I feel invigorated when I plan lessons that are interesting, and when I sit back and just enjoy the kids for being kids. This focus, this awareness of supporting my practice lasted through Saturday evening, when I was all “present” at a bar in the Mission instead of thinking and worrying. But for some reason, Sunday rolled around and I got all caught up in my thoughts again. I think it may have been the extra free time or maybe it was just Monday, looming, as a reminder that “things weren’t done.”
All day Sunday, part of yesterday, and all of today until the last half hour, I’ve been totally caught up in my thoughts. I’ve been worried about parent- teacher conferences, about planning this week and next week ahead of time so that I feel like everything is in place before I fly to Portland to visit friends this weekend, and I’ve been trying every which way that I can to both totally finish and completely avoid writing the kids’ report cards (which are due on Tuesday). I spent zazen this morning planning a math intervention for Boy and Girl 1 and I spent zazen this afternoon problem solving so that I can finish the report cards at the airport without having to lug all the kids’ work to Portland with me.
It’s been interesting to see how much I am clinging to my thoughts as I am experiencing more stress. I am fully aware of how much time I am spending with them and how much power I am giving them. I am cognitively aware that they can’t help me, but I’m totally hanging out with them anyway. They’re totally causing me suffering but I’m holding on to them for dear life, believing that they’re going to make things better.
But then I stopped and thought about the suffering that I was experiencing and decided to get closer to it, to feel it. I imagined the worst that would happen: I might not finish the report cards on time and would have to print them myself (instead of the district doing it for me). I imagined the parent teacher conferences and realized that they would be fine. In some ways, I’ve been preparing for conferences all year long, getting to know the kids both academically and socially. And then I thought about what Paul had said: Do what you need to support your practice. What do I need? Sleep. I need to be in bed, reading, winding down by 9 so that I can get up at 5. I don’t need to enter all their information into the database so that I can work on the report cards in Oregon. I can try, I can enter some of it, but when 9 rolls around, I need to stop. I need to let go of my belief that one thing will lead to another and just take care of the things that support me: sleep. And, unfortunately, I’m 45 minutes past that right now so….
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