There was an exhausted woodcutter who kept wasting time and energy chopping wood with a blunt axe because he did not have the time, he said, to stop and sharpen the blade.
When the Governor pleaded lack of time [to practice meditation], the Master said, “It is a mistake to think that meditation cannot be practiced for lack of time. The real cause is agitation of the mind.”
Anthony de Mello
Not long ago, I attended a four-day retreat at Spirit Rock.
The retreat was great, I learned a lot about meditation and was able to quiet down a bit after a very rough time. HOWEVER, (isn’t it funny how these “howevers” seem to crawl into our lives precisely when everything appears to be wonderful) As soon as I came back, I slowly started drifting away from the meditation cushion. Eventually I rationalized that –for the time being– I did not have the time to meditate, but I was going to return to it as soon as I could.
Can you guess what happened…?
I wanted to get enlightened, but I was just not able to find the right time to sit down to meditate. Then I remembered something I heard at the retreat: some people would like to keep virtually all of their commitments the same and yet experience life completely differently. Which also reminded me Anthony De Mello’s statement that people do not want cure but relief, in other words we want enlightenment provided that we can keep our attachments.
There is much I could write about attachments; about clinging to a way o living, to a position, to a personality, to a social status, etc. However, I want to focus in a subtler attachment; attachment to a spiritual practice. Obviously, I am taking about my own experience but I assume that I am not alone here. I (think) I have not problem with giving up material things for my practice, but what about those things that I cannot morally renounce? All those parents out there know how demanding children are (I have a daughter age 1, those of you who still do not have children believe me, you cannot imagine it, it is mind-boggling). It is certainly a marvelous experience, but very taxing. It seems to me very different not to wake up at 6am to meditate after a good night sleep, than not doing it because your baby was sick and crying all night (and most probably will keep on crying all day). I am aware that everybody is different and many have been able to keep a meditative practice through parenthood, I am myself trying to do it (with mixed results) but something is almost impossible.
So I got really frustrated, frustrated about not being able to meditate every morning (and also for not being able to sleep at night) and then frustrated for being frustrated. What can of dad am I? (and what kind of seeker for that matter). Shouldn’t my daughter be more important than meditation? Or should I see her as an “attachment” that must be relinquished?
Then I remember something else, the suggestion about accepting the reality we are experiencing, whatever it is, without whishing for something else. It seems clear to me now that I was getting attached to my spiritual practice, while feeling aversion about my current circumstances (to avoid confusions, not my daughter, but my impossibility to dedicate enough time to my meditation). I have been struggling with it for a long time (and in many ways, I still am).
My path (for the time being) does not lie (at least not exclusively) on the zafu, but chiefly in my family. The real teaching comes from life, and it is whatever is happening right now, whether sitting, washing dishes or taking care of my daughter. It should not be about “renouncing” anything (in a very delicate sense not even attachment), but about mastering and encompassing everything. Someone once told me, “What is in the way, IS the way”. Likewise, Dipa Ma used to say: “If you are busy, then busyness is the meditation”.
Let us embrace life, whether on the cushion or not.
But then again, what do I know…
