Reclusland

May 24, 2010

- Zen -

Heading back to the Monastery for another sesshin. Be back on Sunday (this one’s a long one)….

And with that, good bye.

ramblings —

  1. Kick your own ass :-)

    Best of luck. (and let us know how it went)

    Comment by Pavel — May 27, 2010 @ 7:52 am


  2. Consider my ass kicked, one hell of a sesshin. And yet, things feel still unfinished, kind of openended… dunno.

    Hope to post some stories soon. It was definitely another step taken.

    Comment by Ian — June 1, 2010 @ 6:50 pm


  3. Keep on going :-)

    Congratulations on your progress and all the time you have put into practice recently. I would love to hear more about it.

    Comment by Pavel — June 2, 2010 @ 7:21 pm


  4. Thanks Pavel. I keep finding it hard to open up about this stuff, though i do want to. I thought it was just that I couldn’t find time to write, but as more and more time goes by, I’m realizing there’s something else at work here. Will have to drop deeper into this desire to write up my experiences and see what’s REALLY holding me back…

    Comment by Ian — June 2, 2010 @ 7:52 pm


  5. Actually, thinking about this brings to mind this piece I read earlier today on tumblr:

    http://crashinglybeautiful.tumblr.com/post/658025142/certainty-is-a-subtle-destroyer

    The need for certainty being a subtle killer of the mystery. The desire to be exact as possible in my writings. And the desire to write about my experience of the mystery.

    There’s quite a koan there. Sometimes things happen too quick to get down, and then I’m sacred that, in trying to get them down, I’ll miss something else. Not that the experiences are important. Reality is an incredibly patient teacher, if I miss something she’s telling me, she’ll tell me again later. But for the sake of the writing, for the record, the lack of completeness scares me.

    And if THAT who psychological muddle ended up stopping me from writing any of this down, it would be an even more ridiculous thing, wouldn’t it? ;)

    Comment by Ian — June 2, 2010 @ 7:58 pm


  6. So happy for you. Practice, the greatest gift of all.

    May you be well, and at peace, and at ease, and happy!

    and deep bow.

    Comment by Marguerite Manteau-Rao — June 4, 2010 @ 10:40 am


  7. Well, i wasnt asking for certainty, I was merely curious about your progress and I have had the feeling for a while now that you didnt want to talk about your own progress which is why I felt compelled to ask. No pressure but its great to hear about other peoples achievements/failures/progress on the meditation front for so many reasons.

    Plus I know so little about this zen stuff which makes me even more curious. For example, I am curious whether someone following a zen tradition will go through a similar pattern of events/experiences/perceptions as me.

    All the best :-)

    Comment by Pavel — June 7, 2010 @ 11:23 am


  8. No worries Pavel, the certainly stuff was more something I’ve been worrying about myself, not something I picked up on in your comments. Sorry for the muddled postings.

    I think have to stop looking for a pattern and focus more on it being just a series of events. I think I’m trying too hard to make my practice fit some idea of what it should be, both for my sake, and for the sake of “reporting” it here. And I need to relax on that a little bit. More trust is needed, that the pieces falling where they do will be OK, in the end.

    As Marguerite points out ( Hi Marguerite, and thank you! :) ) practice itself is the greatest gift. Everything else is just dead skin…

    Comment by Ian — June 7, 2010 @ 11:50 am



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