My Spot on the wall.

          I’ve returned from a weekend sesshin with my friends at “Deep Springs Temple”  (http://www.deepspringzen.org/)  near Pittsburgh PA. It’s was an intense experience. We had 4 ea. 40 minute sitting periods with a 10 minute kinhin (walking meditation) on Friday and Sunday and  4x5 ea. on Saturday. The zendo is a roughly 16’x30’ room with wood paneling. As is the practice in Soto Zen we sat facing the wall. By mid-day on Saturday my body hurt but my mind had started to clear, or so I thought.  I went to bed on Saturday night feeling all “zenny” and non-attached, knowing that I had made progress in my searchers life. The wakeup bell rang at 3:30 Sunday morning. After a quick trip to the bathroom I took my spot in the zendo, and looked for my little spot on the wall that had been my friend all day Saturday

          Then the realization hit me. “My” sitting spot and “My” spot on the wall. How these attachments grow in us, this clinging to anything in the material world. I had grow an attachment to a small hole in a piece of paneling. How appropriate is that since the hole is basically a void. I had become attached to the void.

          This reminded me of a short teaching that I had read. “When you have a muddy dirty pair of work jeans you need a good detergent to get them clean. But try as you might, the jeans are not really clean until you rinse out all of the detergent”.

          In the end we must not even be attached to the dharma. Freedom is what we are after. To save all sentient beings we must first be free ourselves.

Do your practice, be free,
Namaste’

Don