It's the Format, Stupid?

Hotei, a laughing monkWhy add that cruel address? stupid? I'm talking to myself like that because this is maybe the hundredth time I've realized that format steers human interaction. When I told friends about my big Aha, they were, like: oh yeah, look at the signature on your email. 

PsychoZen.Org, Method Meets Life

But, no, I'm not stupid, just making the same old error. What prompted the too familiar revelation this time was that I found myself comparing my Zen friends with other important people in my life who seemed to misunderstand my nature. And then I remembered The Cloakroom, a tiny area at the Zendo where people doff and don their shoes and jackets. In this bitsy space people overflow with the kind of small talk that has always made me freeze with fear and then burn with irritation.

How are you? [do I tell about my disease or just kvell about the weather?]
I'm excited about my new show. [did I know this? should I ask, but do I have to go?]
Got any exciting plans for the summer? [no, I'm hopelessly behind as usual and now I have to ask about yours and feel even worse]

But then the format changes and everything changes. We sit quietly together as our minds entrain to the lower frequencies that can hold and modulate the usual cacophony. The people don't change, except they do.

My patients rarely saw me as judgmental, but plenty of friends and family think I'm pretty opinionated. Who is mistaken? Neither, of course. I didn't judge during sessions because that isn't the format. It would mess up my listening mind. It wouldn't transform anything. It would make people feel worse. While all that is possibly still true outside the therapeutic environment, it's damn fun to have a good argument. Maybe not in the cloakroom, but...

Similarly, tweet all day and your mind will be shallow and fragmented, unless you vigilantly curate your feed. Go to a traditional school and you will produce traditional ideas, unless you make a point of rebelling. Hang around with woke people and you will probably become facile with the splendid spectrum of pronouns. 

Format. Context. Method.

So, I've designed improvisations that elevate the sound of language over the meaning. I've created groups that bend toward truth instead of social requirements. And I've tried to avoid formats that make my brain explode. 

That doesn't make me right and you wrong, just because you like cloakrooms and cocktail parties. And it doesn't make me dislike you. In fact, I might admire you a little. Just don't invite me to your opening. 

Hah, no, that's too harsh a conclusion, though I can't go to your opening now, and you probably aren't having one. But if I could and you were, I might spit and stammer before I finally gush appropriately. I might need an hour or a day to recover. It's ok. I'll survive.

oops, or maybe not. ;-)

February 9, 2022

What's the Rush? Not the Finale

Here's what's happening, but not yet.I would love to declare: Done with that and here is the answer, but I've discovered that it keeps going, the inquiry never ends. What is the rush?  Every answer has something to do with not meeting reality as it is.

In a rush to get somewhere, I am not satisfied with what's happening now. Now is a transition, but it is also complete in itself. I'm aiming to make the 10:19 train, but how am I doing that? I can aim by imagining missing the train and trying to hurry up. Then, anxiety builds and steals attention from pouring tea into my thermos. I drop the cover, wasting precious seconds and getting more tense. Or I can aim into the damn thermos and have a better chance of catching the train.

I have one of those minds where the boundaries between things are not so clear. Soon leaks into Now, and I become overwhelmed. But I really appreciate this mind and I'm not going to trade it in for one of those linear compartmentalizing versions, not that there is anything wrong with them! What I need to do is keep drawing my attention to the specific reality of this moment. Of course, meditation is great for that, and then when meditative awareness meets life as it is beautiful things happen.

I've spent this month designing an Urban Retreat for the Village Zendo. At its conclusion, I get to give my first Dharma Talk and engage in Dharma Combat, which is really just a conversation (oh, please let it be a conversation!). If I survive the battle--no no, the conversation--I become a senior student. It means a lot, and nothing at all. 

or, My Communal Retreat

I've done it the other way.  You know, the vacation where you lie on the beach day after day drinking things with cute toppings and then return to the city accompanied by the deep dread that is only relieved by the agony of actual work beginning.

But now I've turned that whole thing around.  I spend a week practicing Zen meditation and ritual with my community--sweating, greeting demons, and working hard, and then return to what now seems like an incredibly luxurious life.  

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In Defense of Marie Kondo, or, Insider Feminism

Does it spark joy?  If not, let it go.  

It's easy to mock this instruction from the adorable and slightly insane master of tidiness, Marie Kondo, but I contend that it is an invitation to a radical revolution. Master Kondo advises us not to engage with a thing in the usual way.  Don't read the book or try on the clothing; hold it to your heart and notice what you feel. 

"Pay close attention to how your body responds when you do this.  When something sparks joy, you should feel a little thrill, as if the cells in your body are slowly rising.  When you hold something that doesn't bring you joy, however, you will notice that your body feels heavier."

Attention to rising cells is revolutionary; it changes everything.

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Attention!

Today a client lamented that no matter how well she prioritized, constant impingements from ‘the feed’ kept taking her attention.  This is our world.  No matter what job we get or freedom we attain from this or that obligation, data continues to come at us, and asks for an instant response.  We buy something and we’re not done.  We have to complete a survey—about the product, the merchant, the delivery service and then the survey.  Could we have improved the experience of taking a survey?  I’m only little bit kidding.  The need for feedback seems to fold in on itself as it multiplies in some kind of quantum equation I am not qualified to generate.  

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