Returning to the Breath

I realized the other day that I could do two things with my recent illness: crawl into a shell and hide, and contemplate the horrors of what I went through, blame everyone for their lack of support and fear, hate myself for the same reasons, and otherwise become an unpleasant person no-one wanted to be around, and waste my time by imagining more horror and illness.

My other choice was to use my experience for some sort of betterment. Yes, I am still afraid at times. I am far more aware of mortality than I ever was. But I need to simply incorporate these lessons into my self. There might be a time when I will use what I've learned in the course of service to another. There are gifts to be had even from this experience. It is again the experience of facing my own annihilation, my dissolving into the universe and the life beyond this one. I am grateful for such an extraordinary chance and reminder that it is folly to try and pursue the path of comfort, that life shakes me back into the idea that I cannot run from the fear of groundlessness--that I can sit with uncertainty and be present and fine with it. My illnesses have given me a great gift: the knowledge of impermanence, that I have a limited time on this earth. Falling headlong into worries about the future or living forever in the past erase the present moment, which is all I really have.

One thing, over and over, I have been hearing is "mindfulness meditation," from close friends to my therapist. I passed by the Zen Center in Santa Cruz recently, realizing I have thought of this place from time to time, even walked by it occasionally for the past 26 years, but never walked inside.

Somehow today was the day I changed my path.

Of course I was afraid--afraid of not "doing it right," of my cell phone going off even though I silenced it--I carried my whole bag of junk inside, my big purse with cell phone and wallet, Ipod, journal, pens, Chico bag for groceries, pen case, all the junk of my life--what a metaphor!. The monk overseeing the meditation was so warm and welcoming; he truly "saw' me, I think. Not a dour person in sight; everyone seemed calm and yet happy. One fellow--I dub him "the old salt" because I just know there's a boat lurking somewhere in his life--mentioned to another person that Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind was a good book to have when starting zazen, and always coming back to the breath was a good thing.

The meditation center is simple and deeply beautiful in its simplicity. One does not have to sit on a cushion; I sat on a chair. The monk told me that they faced the wall in this practice. I sat in my chair, keeping my spine straight, and put my hands in the "universal mudra," both palms up, left resting on right, thumbs touching, forming an oval. I faced a white wall and a window with white paper on it.

What came up for me? I focused on my breath. Panic arose; the panic of the small child I once was, made to sit for many hours facing a wall in a dark room, as punishment, creating a lifelong fear of the dark. I assured my "inner child" she was in a place of safety and peace. I recognized the panic, I felt it; I did not attach to it; the memory fell away. I realized the panic I often fear is a customary panic put in place during my childhood, and that this panic will attach to situations in my adult life--a tremendous breakthrough for me. I felt a deep constriction at the bottom of my lungs and realized the panic also takes root there; I felt the panic and the place where it rests in my body, and let it go. At the moment I let go, my lungs did also, and I experienced wonderful deep, unconstricted breaths. I heard a bird singing outside; a child laughing and running down the sidewalk; and slowly I came to a deep center of peace, returning always to the breath. And then the bell rang and it was over. It seemed five minutes, but it had been forty-five.

I walked back into the world with a delicate sense of what it means to have a "center." Everything looked so alive--a rose seemed the only rose in the world when I looked at it. It was as simple as the breath, as simple as being alive in that very minute.

I told the monk afterwards that I had been walking by the Zen center for 26 years on and off without going in, and somehow today was the day. He said, "I wonder why today was the right one." I said, "I don't know. It just was." A koan for this beginner? I don't know. But certainly a deep and real truth.