Distinguishing Comfort and Discomfort

It's off to Sesshin tomorrow, and with it, the mild obsession shaded with gentle tones of dread about Being Uncomfortable. I should just add it to my packing list: "Mild Dread About Being Uncomfortable." Check. Because there it always is in some form or another.

There have been some posts looking at renunciation on Dangerous Harvests and No Zen in the West that have been powerful. I read a quote (somewhere sometime) on renunciation by Ajahn Amaro. He says that there is some sadness in renunciation, but also such joy as we let go of old ways of being, and embrace more wholesome ways. Or some such.

It led me to recall one Sesshin which happened to fall during the St. Louis Cardinals World Series. MY Beloved St Louis Cardinals! Missing it was a mild bummer, but it turned out that I really had no interest in trading the opportunity to sit Sesshin for the ability to watch the series. It rather just gently fell away.

There is a line in Shantideva's Way of the Bodhisattva that I've been carrying (and meant to really flesh out in some fancy big blog post) that compares the renunciation of letting go of non-virtuous actions to the experience of a person condemned to death row, then who is suddenly spared and only has their hand cut off instead. Whatever we are giving up, whatever discomforts we are experiencing is really nothing compared to the misery and suffering that we would have if we chose NOT to walk this path.

And in not at all unrelated news, I'll also be carrying Jeanne (aka the Dalai Grandma) and her living kidney donor Laura, in my heart, with best wishes that their kidney transplant surgery went as well as can be for both of them yesterday. May they and all of us be well.

Sitting with what sucks -- I mean, what is.

Maybe my hair is ready to ordain.

Head-shaving has long been a symbol of renunciation in Buddhism. Head-shaving has been a way to physically express the cutting off of the three poisons -- greed, anger and ignorance. Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn even called hair "ignorance grass".

From Only Don't Know:

The Buddha taught that hair is ‘ignorance grass’, so cutting is necessary. If your hair is long, maybe your ignorance is long. When you have hair, you always worry how it looks … We put so much concern and time and effort into keeping this hair the way we like it. So this hair is always pulling our minds around. Being a monk or nun means cutting off all attachments and becoming a completely free person. Being attached to your hair cannot help you do this, so we cut it.

The bald spots on my head are getting larger, and a new one was just found at my last trim at the barber. Alopecia Areata is presenting me with quite a practice. Despite my ideas about myself as a pretty wash-and-go gal, ready or not, I am getting better-acquainted with these attachments to my physical presentation: Thirtysomething woman with cute, short, thick, dark, slightly graying hair.

Holding onto that idea of myself is painful when it's falling apart every moment.

For many people, hair loss is often a side-effect of chemotherapy. Something that adds insult to the injury of life-threatening illness. Mine is certainly not that severe, and even if it gets to that point, Alopecia Areata will damage only my ego, and so I try to keep that in perspective, and see it as an ally in this way.

Also:

• I should always have a full head of hair, the appearance of which loosely commensurate with my age.
• I should be able to control this body.
• I should understand why this is happening.
• Something is wrong with me.

The glue holding this self together is made up of thoughts like those.

Also revealed are my pet notions of how a Zen student "should" respond to this. Well, not just any Zen student. I would not expect others to have some miraculous calm about such an experience, but I have apparently been feeding this notion that I should welcome this teaching with instant acceptance, serenity, equanimity, and even humor or delight at the opportunity to further simplify my daily routine. Let me be clear: That's not how it's been.

There has been quite a bit of resistance to actually feeling the truth of my feelings around this; pain, embarrassment, anger, irritation, shame. And so many of these are secondary emotions; embarrassment about feeling embarrassed. Anger about feeling anger.

Lama Surya Das on renunciation:

...it doesn't necessarily imply suddenly, impulsively, dropping everyone and everything. What renunciation really means is letting go, openness, relinquishing the tight-fisted grasping. The heart of renunciation means allowing rather than controlling; letting go of the controlling and the contrived, selfish manipulation you do in order to get what you think you want. We try to see through the manipulation so that we're less invested in the fool's gold of materialism, of spiritual materialism, or anything that we believe is going to save us or make us happy for ever.

Not a pushing away, but a letting go. Not a wrenching away, but a releasing.

I've actually had that experience with Zen practice. As this life turns more toward practice, the things I used to spend time doing just fall away quite naturally and without much fanfare. Like the time I had signed up for a week-long Sesshin, which turned out to be the week that my home team, my beloved St Louis Cardinals went to (and won) the World Series. I was surprised that my reaction to missing the final games was such a non-reaction. I was surprised to be so satisfied with turning my attention to practice instead of the games. Even missing the games, I did not have any sense of missing anything. It was easy. Effortless.

Lama Surya Das again:

In Tibetan the word (renunciation) is very interesting. It means the arising of certainty, which has a highly positive valence. It doesn't mean throwing away your life, your wife, your husband, your kids, your career, your health, and flagellating yourself in various ways. It means the arising of inner certainty. For example, drinking salt water does not alleviate thirst, so when you know that, you don't have to renounce drinking salt water when you're thirsty; it just doesn't make sense so you naturally relinquish such an action. It doesn't help, so you effortlessly renounce it. When you have inner conviction and spiritual certainty, what is there to renounce?

That is why the Buddha said:

"Adopt and cultivate what is wholesome and beneficial;

Relinquish what is harmful.

Purify your heart and mind;

This is the way of enlightenment."

The way the Tibetan idea was translated from Sanskrit was not sacrifice, but more like the ridding of excess baggage. We have to pay for every kilo of excess baggage, so sloughing off the excess is not a very dire renunciation. Buddhist teachings strongly emphasize notions such as non-attachment, renunciation, simplicity. This is not because Buddhism is pessimistic, but because it's practical and realistic. Everything is passing and changing, so resistance or holding on to fleeting things and relationships is ultimately unsatisfactory. These are the first sublime truths the Buddha taught; they're just the facts of life, not some holy ontology or mythology about the beginning of the universe. These are the facts of life: If you want to suffer less, then resist less, grasp less, identify less with ephemera. It is very unsatisfying to hold on to what is ungraspable.

Yeah man, very unsatisfying. Like getting a crutch kicked out from under you.

All the while, I continue to turn my mind toward looking at this as simply what is; not struggling, but cultivating willingness to actually feel the pain of trying to hold onto something that is transient. To really be awake to how it feels to take refuge in a burning house. To sit and feel the feelings of embarrassment that are not in fact the result of hair loss, but are the result of identifying with these thoughts, this idea of a self as is "should" be.

So instead I just let myself cry, and wordlessly go through this process as it is. To open and widen beyond the tight little clutching confines of me, me, me, self, self, self. Actively receptive.