Weebles Wobble but they Don't Fall Down

When I was a kid I used to play with WEEBLES. Weebles are egg shaped toy figures that are weighted on the bottom so no matter how hard or how often they're pushed, they wobble around for a bit and then stand completely upright once again.

When people ask me why I meditate or whether or not I've seen any difference in my life since I starting sitting several years ago, I'm reminded of Weebles.

While I still have my ups and downs and get all kinds of crazy at times, those periods don't last nearly as long as they once did. I recover much more quickly than I used to from a bout of depression, anxiety, anger or obsessive thinking. The benefits of sitting on a regular basis are crystal clear, and I absolutely see a huge difference in the way I respond or don't respond to certain situations, circumstances, and people that would have once sent me spiraling out of control for days or weeks.

Weebles are awesome dharma teachers. Pay attention to them.

If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere

Or so the song went something like that.

For me, sitting is the best thing I can do for my sense of sanity and well-being.

We're told not to expect anything or have any goals or agendas when it comes to practicing, and for the most part I do agree. But there is absolutely a tremendous benefit to meditating on a regular basis, even if it's just for 5-10 minutes a day. Better that than an hour once or twice a week, trust me.

What goes on when you're sitting goes on throughout your entire life, but you probably just don't realize it.

When we meditate the silence fosters a kind of self-awareness that isn't as readily available during the course of a normal distraction-packed day. However it's very easy to avoid the work of studying ourselves because it's much more fun and tempting to engage in fantasy, planning and speculation.

We don't meditate so we can excel at the art of meditation.

If you can sit and concentrate your mind long enough and regularly enough, you can bring that quality of stillness and clarity with you into the rest of your life.

Buddhism Ain't Just Books

At a sangha meeting a few weeks ago we had an evening of intensive practice (sitting and walking) instead of the usual group discussion format (a short sit followed by a group discussion of some assigned reading material). Someone later commented to me on the side how he really preferred to talk than to meditate, and how much better he liked our "regular meetings." He meant no harm in saying this nor was he being critical—he was merely expressing a preference and in doing so did me a huge favor.

He inadvertently helped me realize that I'd been doing the group a disservice by not emphasizing the importance of regular practice enough. I discovered that I was in the same trap that a lot of Western Buddhists are in--the bottomless pit of dharma books and talks and cd's and mp3's and podcasts that do their best to explain Buddhism in purely intellectual terms. This is absolutely fine and necessary and a huge part of the practice life but first and foremost the whole point is that we have to PRACTICE…

If we know intellectually that touching a hot stove will burn our finger, we have some abstract concepts about what a burn might feel like, and how much it might hurt to touch it. We can talk about it and ponder it and write about it which is all well and good. If we actually touch a hot stove and scream "holy shit, that's hot!", our understanding of hotness and what it feels like to have burning finger flesh becomes much more real. We're experiencing something rather than thinking about it. That's the best way to truly understand something as far as I can tell.

We can talk about the dharma until we're blue in the face but if we don't sit regularly we can't ever fully grasp it.

Just Sitting or Just Hiding?

My initial approach to meditation was very misguided-I believed it was going to do all kinds of things for me and make my life easier. I thought I'd morph into this robo version of myself, replete with a soft voice and permanently pasted on smile, never getting angry or upset or bothered by anyone. I'd be impervious to anything negative and pearls of zen wisdom would spontaneously pour from my lips as needed.

It took me a while to realize that the changes that come with practice, if there are any changes at all, are more subtle than that. And if they do happen, they aren't all that noticeable right away, or at least they weren't for me.

Most religions or philosophies offer the promise of a grand prize if you play the game of life just right. The motivation for being a "good person", whatever the hell that is, is that you'll go to heaven or have a better next life or get the bicycle of your dreams if you can just visualize it strongly enough (remember The Secret?)

The way I see it, Zen offers no guarantee of a better afterlife or even a better next week. What it does offer, if we practice, is a better experience of life overall. In this moment. Right here and now. There are no fairytales or promises or magical cures, just an emphasis on a regular sitting practice so that we can better know ourselves and our minds so that eventually we are longer be so beholden to our thoughts.

That's something I can work with and believe in.

It's very tempting to view practice as a means of escaping rather than a tool for embracing our lives as they are. This was certainly how I saw it in the beginning.

The real payoff comes when we learn to stop running away from this moment in search of something better because true joy is right under our noses right now but we're too blind to see it most of the time.

Meditation in the Dentist's Chair

This morning I had an appointment with my dentist to have two cavities filled (only 5 more to go! Yay!)

For as long as I can remember, my way of coping with dental visits was to distract my body and my brain as much as possible from the pain, discomfort, and awkwardness of the experience. I mean, there is a whole lot of drilling and drooling to contend with at the dentist's office and if there were ever any moments of my life I hesitated to embrace, it would be these.

One method of distraction I'd use was to focus entirely on my hands--and as soon as the huge scary novacaine needle was about to pierce the wall of my mouth, I'd start tapping or scratching the top of my left hand with my right one, in a semi-successful attempt at redirecting my awareness from one area of my body to the other. And of course I'd keep my eyes closed and picture myself sipping on fruity cocktails in an exotic beach somewhere very far away from here. As usual I'd attempt to push away the unpleasant, and summon a degree of neutral-to-semi-unpleasant sensations in their place.

Today I experimented with sitting zazen in the dentist's chair. As I lay there reclined in the chair, I simply focused on my breathing and paid keen attention to the cold sharpness of the needle as it dug into the top row of my gums. I kept completely still as my hands rested on each of the chair arms, my body open and vulnerable to the entire experience. My mouth and tongue gradually numbed, and I took stock of what that felt like: nothing actually, it felt like nothing. A second injection followed and again, I sat motionless, and didn't entertain any judgments or opinions about what was happening, I just let it happen and submitted to the moment.

My dentist conversed with her assistant as she filled my two teeth (are they still putting mercury into our mouths?) and before I knew it, it was all over. Uncomfortable and awkward, complete with saliva streaming down my numbed-out mouth and onto my shirt, but it was over.

No big deal, just a dental appointment I decided to keep.

By the way, if you don't floss now, start.