Keep Coming Back

Transcendence entails going-far; Going-far entails return. - Tao Te Ching

For a few years I’ve been hosting the Nyack Zen Group, which you can read about here on this website. It’s a weekly meeting of people who come together for silent meditation, and to encounter Zen practice and other Buddhist teachings. The structure of the group is almost identical today as to when it began – a short reading of spiritual teachings that are either Buddhist or share a kind of Buddhist spirit, followed by two 20-minute silent meditation sittings with a 5-minute silent break in between, to walk or stretch. The group ends with an open discussion about whatever is on participants’ minds. Often that includes how people’s meditation has gone that evening, but there is also more general sharing about life experiences, and how they integrate with meditation practice.

I love this group and hosting it feels one of the most important things I do. The group started because years ago I was searching for local people to do Zen meditation with and even though I looked all over the region, I couldn’t find it being done in a way that seemed authentic. Some practitioners I found were doing it in a very orthodox way – robes and incense, chanting, and more. There is nothing wrong with any of that, and I do all of it when I go on formal meditation retreats. But what I was looking for locally, yet not finding, was a way of meditating and doing Zen that was serious, but which dropped the formalities and got to the heart of the matter – silent, still meditation - and remained focused on that. Eventually when I couldn’t find it, I was encouraged by friends to finally try creating it, and that’s how the group got started.

Over the years, so many people have passed through. It’s an open group and no serious background with meditation is required. I simply ask people to call me before coming for the first time, so we can talk a bit about their experience with meditation. It’s a useful review, so I can understand a little of their expectations, and also it’s good for them to understand what the group does, and why, because “meditation” means different things to different people. For some, meditation is lying on your back for 3 minutes at the end of a yoga class. For others, it’s listening to someone talking from within a phone app, telling you how to breath or to imagine various happy places. Although it’s true that those activities are "meditation" in a general sense, they are not Zen meditation, which has a different character to it, and more importantly, a different purpose.

Passing Through

There are many ways that people engage the group, but also depart. Many have come one time and never returned. Zen meditation is not to everyone’s taste. I’m not to everyone’s taste! Some have joined in and come every week for a month and then just stopped. Some come sporadically and continue to do so indefinitely. Some have been very regular, but have moved away and could no longer join in. Still others have had big life situation or schedule changes that have kept them away. Some have even come for a year or more, very committed, and then just stopped.

I deeply appreciate those who come regularly and keep coming, and I also greatly miss many of the people who used to come and who contributed in so many valuable ways to the group. I think it’s possible, or maybe likely, that some who stopped coming don’t realize how much they are missed, or how valuable their contributions were. And that’s very much on me. Since the very beginning of the group, I have never asked attendees for any commitment, treating participation “at will.”  And when people would stop showing up, I almost never reached out unless I thought they might not be well, because I didn’t want anyone to feel guilted or obligated into going. In retrospect, I think this has been a mistake.

My feeling has long been that for Zen practice to be effective, the practitioner must be self-motivated. But I think I’ve made a mistake believing in something called “self-motivation” that is somehow completely separate from something else called “external motivation.” That’s a black & white perspective. My mistake was thinking that for someone to be self-motivated, it somehow excluded other-motivation. None of us is an island, and all that we are, all that we feel and think, is a product of both inner life and “outer” life - our connections to other people. We inter-are, and so motivation comes both from within and without. Why can’t me as host, or the group as a whole, also be a source of motivation and  encouragement? It can be, and it should be.

A Message

I have a message for anyone who has ever attended the Nyack Zen group, but stopped going for any reason at all. The message is simple – if you want to meditate with the group, you should just come back! This is really a universal message. If you want to do a personal meditation practice, you should do it, and nothing should stop you. And likewise, if you want to do a group meditation practice, nothing – and I mean nothing – should stop you from doing that either. There is no duration of being away, or reasons for being away, that would mean you can’t come back if you want to. The reason is so simple – the group exists for you. Its purpose is to be a space and opportunity for people who want to do group meditation practice, so they can just do it. The idea is to take away some barriers to meditation by making it easily accessible, and supporting it with help, sharing, and the collective effort of all who participate.

If you persevere, there can be no failure. - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

To keep coming back to the activities we sense are wholesome and helpful is an essential element of Zen teachings. We fall down and we get back up. We persist. There is a Japanese proverb sometimes quoted by Zen teachers: "Knocked down 7 times, get up 8 times." This keep-coming-back approach is exactly what we are practicing in Zen sitting meditation. No matter how many times we get distracted, no matter how often we lose our attention into thoughts and memories, into feelings or sounds and sights – no matter how many times - we keep coming back to the breath. To keep coming back after noticing we’re lost is the essence of Zen meditation.

Everyday Living

We do not practice Zen meditation this way to create special or blissful states to enjoy - this is where Zen purpose differs from other meditation systems, and also where some newcomers to Zen stumble a bit. We meditate, so that we can build the strength to keep coming back to our everyday living, when we are not in meditation. It’s a little like the gym – we don’t go to the gym to be healthy while we’re at the gym. That would be pretty useless. We go to the gym to build endurance and strength that we can use outside the gym, to take into everyday life! Strength for carrying heavy luggage or groceries or shoveling snow. Stamina for raking leaves or cleaning a home. How useful would working out at the gym be if it only helped us while we’re actually at the gym?

Practicing meditation develops strength of attention we can use to keep coming back to playing with our children, to talking with a good friend, to washing dishes, writing an email, brushing our teeth, or taking out the garbage. We keep coming back to here and now, no matter how many times our habits might pull us away into memories or fantasies.

There is both a relative, and a more universal perspective to this keep-coming-back attitude. The relative perspective requires some discernment on our part, when the coming-back involves choices. Should we keep coming back to drug and alcohol overuse? To endless, useless, streaming videos? To people who hurt us? None of that is a coming-back that helps. When action and choice are involved, we want to come back to what we intuitively feel is wholesome – actions that help and support ourselves and others. We come back to kindness, to supportive personal connections, to giving, and to actions that bring clarity – a seeing clearly of what we are, and how we might better function in the world.

We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. - T. S. Elilot

But there is also a universal understanding to this coming back, which is to keep coming back to experiencing, regardless of the experiences themselves. We keep bringing awareness to the present moment, whatever is unfolding. In this perspective, there is no choice of what to come back to – we come back to what is, here, now. If there is grief over the loss of a loved one, we bring awareness to the grief. If there is joy at a new birth, we bring awareness to the joy. This aligns our felt sense of being with whatever conditions happen to be. This kind of attention to the moment is always available to us, although it can feel incredibly difficult when distracting thoughts and compulsive thinking are pulling us away from simple, direct experiencing. Can we bring awareness to compulsive thinking itself? Yes, certainly! And that can be an impactful insight when it happens - to see that we are not the thinking itself, but that we are the awareness which knows the thinking.

Zen practice is not about arriving at some imagined destination where everything will finally feel good. It’s not about outcomes. It is about process. It is about direction. When our process is a good one, and when our direction is a good one, then our efforts are changing us for the better. Sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, sometimes paused or stalled. But if we stay with a good process and direction, if we redirect ourselves when we notice things are off-course, then our efforts are effective in the long term. And Zen is a long-term practice; it is not a quick fix and not an approach that you can do for a while and then stop when you’re done – it’s never done. Because it’s never done, you need to keep coming back! It’s a lifetime practice that is valuable in the beginning and the middle, but which has no end. Just keep coming back!!