The reality of a doughnut

Lately, I’ve been trying to pay attention to my habits around food. Here's what I've noticed:

Treats:

I tend to use certain foods as a “treat” for myself. If I’ve had a bad day, I console myself with certain foods. If I’ve been especially “good” (and this tends to focus around discipline or denying myself what I want and doing what’s “right” or “good” instead) I reward myself with certain foods.

Forbidden food:

The foods that I choose as “treats” tend to be the foods that were either deemed ‘bad for you’ when I was kid or that we had only on special occasions. For me, this tends to be Ho Hos, doughnuts, Cheetos, or anything greasy/ fast food/ fried.

This habit of “treating” myself with “bad food” is pretty strong. It’s so strong that even with full awareness of it, I do it anyway. I think that it’s somehow connected to the “reward” part of this whole equation. Here’s what happens:

I have a bad day. As I walk home, I pass a convenience store and consider going in to buy Hohos. Then I remind myself that I’m only doing that to make myself feel better and that, honestly, the Hoho tastes and feels like plastic, sits in my gut, and never feels as good as I’m eating it as I’d hoped it would be. I momentarily feel better because I resisted the temptation of the HoHo. Then I pass another store and tell myself that maybe I can get some Frito chips instead, they’re not as full of saturated fats, the ingredients are just salt and corn… Then I remember again that I’m just trying to console myself and that there are other ways to console myself. So then I keep walking past that convenience store. By the time I pass another convenience store I think “Hey, you’ve denied yourself this twice now. You’ve been so good! You deserve a Hoho!” and I go in reward myself with Zingers, the ultimate in fat and creamy goodness.

Sometimes, I eat all three of them immediately without even feeling how good they taste. Other times I eat them and relish them, telling myself how incredibly creamy and smooth and chocolatey they are when actually, they aren’t. Either way, I never feel better after eating them, neither physically or emotionally, and often end up “treating” myself with something else when I get home.

This weekend, I went through the same process and caved with a cream filled chocolate doughnut at Safeway. I took the first bite, hoping it would be warm, it wasn’t. I tried to feel how smooth the actual doughnut was. It wasn’t. I licked the cream, trying to taste its sweetness and feel it melt in my mouth. Meh, it was basically vanilla pudding. In the end, it was just a doughnut, from Safeway. Not at all worth all the debate, denial, and final ‘giving in’ that I went through in deciding whether or not to eat it.

So then I decided that this was all coming down to expectations. That the reason I was so disappointed in the doughnut was because I had built it up so much- had made it seem like it would be delicious and would make me feel better and that what I really needed to do was actually experience the doughnut for what it had been. So I did. I recalled my experience with the doughnut. The doughnut was dry, I barely tasted the chocolate, the pudding was sweet, but it all felt heavy and greasy in my stomach when I was done. That is the reality of my doughnut.

So I think, that the next time I want to ‘reward’ myself with a doughnut, I need to be realistic about it. I need to say to myself: Yeah, totally, you can have that doughnut. You can eat that mostly dry thing covered in chocolate that makes you sick to your stomach. Because that really is what the doughnut is. It isn’t going to ‘reward’ me for being good or ‘console’ me for having a bad day, it’s just a doughnut. If I’m eating it for that, then I can go ahead. But if I see it as anything else, I’m only going to end up being disappointed and wanting more.

Doh! The one thing I forgot...

There was only one thing that I had to buy at Trader Joe's today, and that was the only reason I went today instead of waiting until Saturday when I got home. Of course, Trader Joe’s was super crowded but I got in and out in pretty good time. I got home, emptied my bags, and was feeling good that I had gotten everything done- I was even looking forward to not having to go on Saturday. As I folded my laundry and packed for my trip I realized: the one thing I needed at Trader Joe’s (a gift card for my cousin) was the one thing I hadn’t gotten.

I started berating myself: How could you forget the one thing? Now you have to go back and it’s going to be super crowded. Now you have to move your car again. Why didn’t you write it down? This is such a pain in the butt.

Then I tried to improve my situation by making my second trip to Trader Joe’s more efficient. I figured out which would be the fastest one to go to, I combined it with other trips, I considered going to the Trader Joe’s near my uncle’s when we got there… but mostly, I was mad at myself for totally forgetting the one thing that I needed.

Then I tried to do what Paul said to do in dokusan: just experience what I was doing, not analyze it or judge it, just notice it. 

I notice that you expect things to work out perfectly.

I notice that you don’t expect yourself to make mistakes.

I notice that you expect yourself to remember everything.

I notice that you ignore the things you did do and focus instead on what you didn’t do.

I notice that you see the one thing that you didn’t do as being about 90% important.

I notice that you generalize this one error into a statement about you as a whole.

I can’t say noticing these things changed how annoyed I was with myself, but it did actually teach me quite a bit about myself. Paul had mentioned this in dokusan too. Sometimes, when we look at ourselves this way, it loosens things up a bit, opens us, and allows what was causing us suffering to kind of sink away into the background a bit. Other times, it can actually bring things up instead, and we kind of have to meet them face to face- eeek! In this case, it did feel like a loosening, like an awareness. I feel like maybe next time, I'll be more compassionate with myself instead of being so annoyed.

Being present in the zendo

When I complained to a friend of mine about all the 'mistakes' I was making during service in the zendo, she suggested that the ‘mistakes’ might be a result of me not being present in the zendo.

I looked at her like she was crazy.

“Are you kidding me? There is no one, no one who is more present in the zendo than I am. I spend my entire time in the zendo watching everyone else, thinking about the forms, trying to get it right. I couldn’t possibly be more present in the zendo!”

She looked at me and smiled. “Huh,” she said. “So you’re being really present during service… ”

“Yes!” I responded with absolute annoyance.

“So,” she continued. “Being present; that means thinking, analyzing, trying to get it right?”

I looked at her.

I had nothing to say.

3rd One Day Sit part 3: Choosing between your father and the abbot

When I signed up for this one day sit, I knew that it was on the same day that I was going to see the symphony with my dad. But I figured that as long as I left the zendo by 5, I’d be home in time to meet my dad at 5:30 so that we’d make our dinner reservations at 6.

In the morning, I asked to have dokusan with Paul. By 4 o’clock zazen, Lucy (Paul’s assistant) hadn’t approached me so I figured he wasn’t able to see me that day. For some reason, the 4 o’clock zazen felt extra long. When the bell finally rang I remember thinking, “Well, at least the next period will be short. I’ll bet it’s 4:45 so the next one will only go until 5 so that they’re back on schedule.” Then Lucy approached me, “Shannon? Can you make dokusan with Paul now?”

“Okay,” I answered and followed her out of the zendo. I immediately started thinking about dokusan with Paul: what was I supposed to ask? Did I have something significant to say? Should I ask him to be my teacher?

And then I thought, “Oh @#$, it’s 4:45. What if I have dokusan so long that I’m late leaving the zendo?” But then I thought, “Nah, even if it goes super long I can still get out of here by 5:20, that’s time enough  to meet my dad by 5:30.”

I went upstairs and sat in the hallway. After a while, Lucy came up and sat zazen next to me. While we were sitting, I could hear a man’s voice and Rosalie’s voice. Then I heard laughter from another man’s voice. “Ah,” I thought. “That must be whoever is having dokusan with Paul. If there’s laughter involved, it’s dokusan with Paul.”

Lucy and I sat there for a while. I started to get worried. I thought, “Uh oh. What if that laughter is coming from that tall guy in class who seems to be friends with Paul? Whenever they get together it seems like they could talk zen for hours!” Then Lucy got up and I thought “Uh oh, maybe she’s going to go tell Paul that I’m waiting out here.” But then I thought, “No, I don’t think Lucy tells Paul what to do. Also, I’m pretty sure that time isn’t what’s important here, it’s what’s going on in dokusan that determines when it starts and stops.” And I was right, Lucy did not go in to tell Paul I was waiting. I don’t know where she went.

Then I heard a gong from a clock. Then I heard someone else come up the stairs and say “Talk about late! My appointment was at five! I’m so sorry!” Then I finally heard a door open. I heard footsteps and I heard a door close. And then I heard laughter again and I thought, “Nope, that wasn’t the person with Paul who left, that was the person with Rosalie.”

I freaked, then I tried to be zen. I tried to have “big mind.” And I did, for a little bit. I remembered when I had dokusan with Paul at the last sit. I remembered feeling like my dokusan was extra long but being grateful to Paul for taking the time to meet with me and grateful to the person waiting.

Then I tried to be present for this moment. I said, “Right now, you are waiting for dokusan with Paul. Maybe in the next moment you will actually be having dokusan with Paul. You will get home eventually and you will see the symphony with your dad and you will have dinner with your dad.”

But then I pictured my dad, at my house, at 5:30 and me not being there. I thought, “He’s going to think that something happened to me,” and that was not okay.

Then I heard another gong and I thought “Oh no, it is 5 fifteen. What am I going to do? I have to not go to dokusan with Paul.” Then I thought, “Well, I can just go to dokusan with Paul and be present with it and say to him ‘I have to meet my dad- sorry, gotta go!”

Then I heard laughter again and I thought, “Okay, I just have to leave.” But then I couldn’t figure out how to leave. Lucy was gone. How could I tell Paul that I had to go, without walking in on his dokusan? Then I pictured Paul ringing his jingle bell when it was time for my doksuan and me not answering and him looking down at Lucy’s notebook and seeing the name Shannon and forever remembering “Ah, that’s the one who didn’t show up for dokusan.”

And then I saw Cynthia standing there and asked her, “What time is it?”

“Just a little after five,” she answered.

“Just a little?” I asked.

“Yeah, just a little,” she said. So I sat back down, and waited.

Finally, the door opened. Paul rang his bell, I rang my bell. I got up, walked toward Paul’s door and there, putting on his shoes, was my friend. He had a big smile on his face and he bowed deeply to me. I think it might have been his first dokusan with Paul, I don’t really know but I bowed deeply in return and felt really grateful that he had had a dokusan with Paul that was filled with laughter.

I did my best to be present for my dokusan with Paul but thoughts about what time it was and where my dad was kept jumping into my brain. I learned a lot from my doksuan but I also limited what I shared because I was afraid to start talking about anything that might turn into a long conversation and make me even later for my dad. I don’t know if Paul picked up on this or not. I felt bad later because Paul was definitely present for me during dokusan but I wasn’t totally present for my own dokusan.

As soon as dokusan was over, I ran downstairs and out the back door. I turned on my cellphone and grabbed my watch: 5:30, phew!

I called my dad, “Daddy? I’m running a little late.”

“You’re running a little late or I’m running a little late?” he asked.

“Are you running late?” I asked.

“Yes,” he answered. “I’m on Divisadero.” Yes! I thought. My dad, who is never late is running late- yes!

“I’m running late too,” I told him. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”  And I was, and we made our dinner reservations and we made it to the symphony and I was present for the first set and it was beautiful. For the second set, I relived and analyzed my dokusan with Paul. Then I fell asleep. Then I woke up and we went home.  I will never, ever, schedule a one-day-sit on the same day as anything else again. 

3rd One Day Sit Part 2: Kitchen duty and dokusan

Kitchen prep: I have to preface this by sharing something that I’ve noticed about doing work at the zen center. I think that it’s our natural inclination, myself included, to do jobs “well” (efficiently or in the best way possible). I’ve noticed that when given a job, we immediately start thinking about the best way to do it and often put our energy in designing a way to get the task done better than the way we’ve been asked to do it.

But I think that the point of doing work at the zen center is to just do it in a way that we’re present for it. We don’t do work to do it quickly or better or to save time, we do it for the sake of it. I clean the bathroom so that it is clean for others. I move the chairs so that people can sit in them, that’s all. There are some things that you just do, doing them quickly or in a better way is kind of silly: it’s like trying to be more purple.  

So, I approached my kitchen duty with that in mind. The kitchen person told us exactly how to rip the chard, where to put the stalks, and where to put the chard. I watched the other helpers look in the chard buckets and try to clean them. Then I listened as the kitchen person explained that it didn’t matter that they were dirty, we were going to rinse the chard after putting them in the buckets.

I ripped my chard into bite size pieces and admit that I moved closer to the bucket so that I could drop them in as I ripped them. I admit too that as I rinsed the chard, I noticed that there were a lot of really big sized pieces. I wanted to say something like, “Hey, should we rip these a little smaller?” or even just rip them myself but then I thought, “You know what, I’ll bet that when they cook, they shrink and I’ll bet that no one’s even going to be able to pick up your little bite size pieces! ” But mostly, I thought, get your ‘self’ out of this equation and do what needs to be done: rinse the chard. And that made for a lovely kitchen experience.

Dokusan: I really hope I’m not breaking some unspoken rule by talking about what went on in my dokusan with Paul. I’m sharing what he said to me because I think that other people will benefit from it. If I’m breaking a rule, please, someone let me know and I’ll remove it. Also, this is my memory and interpretation of my dokusan with Paul. I’m sure he said things that I’m not saying here and I’m sure that I’m remembering things differently than what he actually said. Sorry, that’s just the reality of a recalled conversation between two people.

I started off my dokusan by talking with Paul about what feelings had been coming up for me during zazen. I did this because in our last class of the practice period, he had explained that instead of trying to cognitively analyze what was coming up for me during zazen, I should just experience what was coming up for me in zazen. I was experiencing fear and loneliness.

When we talked more about my fears, he suggested that I might be being a little hard on myself. I considered this, but felt like it was a cop out, felt like my fears were based on a genuine reflection of my abilities. I didn’t exactly agree with him, but I didn’t argue with him about it.

Then we talked some more and I agreed that there were some good things that I was doing. And then we talked about seeing the self, using our thoughts to kind of illuminate our habits, and then he suggested that I have a “propensity to pay attention to the negative aspects of my teaching.” And that I totally agreed with.  I am all about finding out what’s wrong on my own first so that by the time anyone else figures out what I’m doing wrong, I can say “Yeah, I know, I’m working on it,” instead of having them actually criticize me.

But it was interesting. Paul basically said the same thing he had said at the beginning “you’re too hard on yourself”; but when he said it this other way “you have a propensity to focus on the negative aspects of your teaching” I could totally accept it, agree with it, and see it in a way that allowed me to look even further into it.

So guess what I spent the whole next morning doing? Listing my propensities.

I have a propensity for logical thought. I have a propensity for stability. I have a propensity for minimal conflict between myself and others. I have a propensity for things to “work out.” I have a propensity to finish things. I have a propensity to gauge someone’s likeliness to leave me by whether or not I make them happy. I have a propensity… for chocolate.

It was kind of fun. I can actually see these things about myself without feeling bad about them. I think it’s because of the magic phrase: I have a propensity for… And here’s what I think is magic about it.

#1 I have a propensity for isn’t a fixed state. It’s like a notion, a preference, it’s true of me now but it might not be true of me later (well, that chocolate thing, that might be a fixed state).

#2 It’s not all me. I’m not sure where propensities come from but it doesn’t feel like I asked for it or did something wrong to develop it, it’s just a propensity, like brown hair or green eyes.

#3 It feels malleable. If I decide that I’m not so interested in having this propensity, I can do something about it. Propensities don’t feel like they ever go away but they do feel like you can manage them: encourage them one way or discourage them another.

Who knows, maybe Paul just found a word that I wasn’t too familiar with and threw it in there to keep me from seeing myself so negatively but I don’t think so. I think Paul knows exactly what he’s doing. Anyway, hopefully you’re as unfamiliar with the meaning of a propensity as I am and you’re willing to see it the way I do and use it to see yourself without judgment.

3rd one day sit part 1: Letting go a little too much

Zazen: An interesting thing happened during my second period of zazen: I just felt what it feels like when I breathe. Now, I’ve focused on my breath before. I’ve even felt what it feels like to breathe, normally, during zazen. But every time I’ve done this, it’s been with a goal or an object in mind. I’ve focused on my breath to keep myself from thinking. And I’ve felt what it feels like to breathe so that I’ll know when I’m breathing right. But this time, I just felt my breath and I said, “This is what it feels like when you breathe.” It was interesting, I just breathed and felt it. And then, of course, my thoughts came rushing in and I went sailing away with them. But before that, for a little while, I just breathed.

This is something I've been trying to do during zazen: not judge myself. I've been more able to do this in my regular life, notice things about myself just as they are, not good or bad. But in zazen, even though I say "Oh, that's a thought," or "Come back to your breath," what I'm thinking is "Damn it, that's a thought, why can't you stop thinking?" and "Lame brain, you got carried away with your thoughts again. Better come back to your breath where you're supposed to be." But this morning, just feeling my breath, just to know it, was really different. I just felt it, that was all. I don't know what else to say about it other than I recommend it.

Soji: I got bathroom duty for soji again. It was interesting to do the same job for soji at this sitting as I had at the last one, because I was able to notice the change in my approach to it. Last time, all I could think about was whether or not I was doing everything on the list of cleaning instructions. I felt panicked that I wouldn’t get it done on time and that, because of that, I’d be judged as inept at cleaning the bathrooms and be downgraded to some other soji job. All of my energy was focused on “doing it right” and on “getting it done” before the bell rang. When the bell rang last time, I felt defeated and like a failure because I hadn’t taken out the garbage.

This time, even though the Ino said that we would have a short soji, I got everything done before the bell rang and even considered going back to the work leader for another job. Now, it’s possible that because this was my second time doing this job, I was faster at it but honestly, I don’t think that was it. I think that I just did what needed to be done. I emptied the garbage because it fills up quickly (and yes, because I wanted to finally finish what I hadn’t finished before) and I sprayed the fixtures with disinfectant because it seemed like that was the most important thing in cleaning the bathroom. My focus was on doing the job well- not so that others would approve of me, but because that’s just what you do. When you do things well, when you fully engage in them, they actually get done, whether or not you finish them.

When I finished with time to spare and considered going back to the work leader, I imagined her response to me, asking for more work. Then I thought, “You know what? I’ll bet this isn’t about getting lots of work done, it’s about doing the work well.” So I looked around the bathroom and noticed areas that needed cleaning and I cleaned them. And then the bell rang. And this time, I felt relieved instead of panicked, and very much willing to leave the bathroom the way it was.

Oryoki: I had a couple of instances during oryoki where I felt confused about the forms, mostly because what I thought was right, wasn’t what was being done. My first response was to ask the Ino about it later, just to confirm that I was right, but then I thought, “Really? Do you need to be right about this? Isn’t right what works? And, what’s right in this oryoki will likely be wrong in some other oryoki.”

I did learn one form though, about seconds. Asking for seconds is an individual thing, not a pair thing. So, if your pair wants seconds, they gassho for it but you don’t join in the gassho bow like you would normally do when a server comes to you.

The han: During the break after oryoki, I was pretty tired (I hadn’t slept well the night before) so I just sat in the courtyard and drank some tea. I didn’t check the schedule to see what was next or how long it was until the next event. Instead I tried to “let go” of time and just follow what the one day sit had in store for me next.  But then I heard the han and thought that was a funny thing to hear before the lecture. I looked at the Buddha hall and noticed that no one seemed to be setting up for the lecture. I told myself not to worry about getting a good seat, to just go when it was time to go and kept drinking my tea. Then I went to the bathroom, thinking we’d be going straight from lecture to zazen, and heard the han again so headed upstairs to the Buddha hall. There was still no one in the Buddha hall except a bunch of people who were not part of the one day sit. Finally the greeter said to me, “They’re downstairs, sitting zazen.” I put my hands up in idiocy, then bowed to her in gratitude, and rushed downstairs as she called “You can still sit in the gaitan…”

I shook my head as I sat down in the gaitan, embarrassed that I had completely forgotten about the second period of zazen. I considered going in to the zendo just to show that I really was there for the sitting, that I wasn’t flaking, and partly because I felt like I belonged in the zendo, not in the gaitan. But then I realized that walking in there to prove that I hadn’t forgotten, to show others that I belonged in there would also involve interrupting everyone with my footsteps and sitting down and that was definitely unnecessary. So, I stayed in the gaitan for the second period.