How to Take Off a Plastic Raincoat
By Arthur Wells Roshi (Zen teacher)
An ancient saying in Zen goes: “Practicing zazen is like walking in mist – you don’t know you are getting wet until you are soaked through.” What soaks through? The world itself, the “myriad beings,” in Dogen’s words, soak in till we’re wet through, if we let it happen. Until this begins to happen we are lonely, separate individuals. As the soaking progresses we gradually realise that our isolation is an illusion created by our endless thinking, remembering, planning, rehearsing dialogues, worrying and regretting.
Buddha drew our attention to how the unfixed nature of the self -- the way it’s always changing and needing patching up and reassurance -- is the source of our anguish (Dukkha). We suffer because of our “self-clinging” (Tanha), he said. In Zen we expand this and say that our suffering is caused by clinging to the “separateness of self.” To use a modern image, our ego is as flimsy and provisional as a plastic raincoat. It’s something we put on in order to avoid getting soaked through by the vast world that comes at us from all sides. The great question is how can we stop being afraid of getting soaked?
Separateness of self is a fear-driven creation of our own minds. This is not to say it’s an illusion – our mind-creations are quite real, just as our dreams are real, but they can be a barrier to feeling truly at home in the world. A different kind of life is possible without this mind-created barrier. Actually everyone in their lifetime gets a few big rips in their plastic raincoat! Sooner or later, through experiences of love, or creativity, or delight in nature, everyone has an experience of being so intensely alive that there is just this moment. It need not be a joyful or happy thing either – it may be prompted by the deepest grief or even terror that plunges us out of our ordinary frame of thinking. Whatever the cause, it is an awakening out of our dream of isolation into the world of vast connectedness. Then, if only for a few moments, there is a falling away of all the constructs that reinforce the idea of separate self. Fortunately, life itself does this to nearly everyone. Until it happens – until the plastic raincoat gets shredded -- we have no idea that such ‘deep-seeing’ is even possible for us.
What does this all have to do with meditation? Being forcibly plunged into the unspeakable vastness of the present moment is not the same thing as meditation, because eventually life will do this to us anyway, however it’s definitely the goal and purpose of meditation. Meditation is the practice of awakening to the present moment. We rehearse or practice any ability so it’s there when we need it. Sitting and walking meditation dissolves our separateness, at first from our own breath and body, then progressively through attention to sound, light, movement and landscape, it wears away our isolation from the wider world. Gradually we strip off the thin raincoat of our separation and even welcome getting wet through.
In terms of how we feel about ourselves and our life, this changes everything, enabling us to say with Yunmen, “Every day is a good day!” This means we can say that even on a day when the most terrible or difficult things happen, it’s still a good day. How can this be? It’s a deep shift of perspective. Our ability to value life is not now confined to what is happening to ourselves alone, whether this is enjoyable or anxious or painful for us, or even immensely sad. A new, deeper undercurrent is present, informing us that no matter what happens to us personally there is profound dignity and beauty in being human and in being part of this great universe. A central radiance stabilises. What we are is enough. More than enough!
When seeing and feeling become vast and wide like this, even for just a few seconds, even if we’re tired or sick or bereft or even dying at the time, we still rejoice that orcas are surfacing through the ice around Antarctica, elephants walk through the savannahs of Africa, children play and laugh, people sing and dance and make great music everywhere, our loved ones and friends are alive and doing their own thing somewhere, and when it’s dark the stars will come out and fill the sky with impossible splendour.
This has everything to do with how we come to care about what is happening in our world. How can we not care when ultimately we are it, and it is us? This inescapable identity wrenches open our heart.
© Arthur Wells, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Arthur Wells Roshi is a Zen Teacher in the Diamond Sangha Zen tradition.
An ancient saying in Zen goes: “Practicing zazen is like walking in mist – you don’t know you are getting wet until you are soaked through.” What soaks through? The world itself, the “myriad beings,” in Dogen’s words, soak in till we’re wet through, if we let it happen. Until this begins to happen we are lonely, separate individuals. As the soaking progresses we gradually realise that our isolation is an illusion created by our endless thinking, remembering, planning, rehearsing dialogues, worrying and regretting.
Buddha drew our attention to how the unfixed nature of the self -- the way it’s always changing and needing patching up and reassurance -- is the source of our anguish (Dukkha). We suffer because of our “self-clinging” (Tanha), he said. In Zen we expand this and say that our suffering is caused by clinging to the “separateness of self.” To use a modern image, our ego is as flimsy and provisional as a plastic raincoat. It’s something we put on in order to avoid getting soaked through by the vast world that comes at us from all sides. The great question is how can we stop being afraid of getting soaked?
Separateness of self is a fear-driven creation of our own minds. This is not to say it’s an illusion – our mind-creations are quite real, just as our dreams are real, but they can be a barrier to feeling truly at home in the world. A different kind of life is possible without this mind-created barrier. Actually everyone in their lifetime gets a few big rips in their plastic raincoat! Sooner or later, through experiences of love, or creativity, or delight in nature, everyone has an experience of being so intensely alive that there is just this moment. It need not be a joyful or happy thing either – it may be prompted by the deepest grief or even terror that plunges us out of our ordinary frame of thinking. Whatever the cause, it is an awakening out of our dream of isolation into the world of vast connectedness. Then, if only for a few moments, there is a falling away of all the constructs that reinforce the idea of separate self. Fortunately, life itself does this to nearly everyone. Until it happens – until the plastic raincoat gets shredded -- we have no idea that such ‘deep-seeing’ is even possible for us.
What does this all have to do with meditation? Being forcibly plunged into the unspeakable vastness of the present moment is not the same thing as meditation, because eventually life will do this to us anyway, however it’s definitely the goal and purpose of meditation. Meditation is the practice of awakening to the present moment. We rehearse or practice any ability so it’s there when we need it. Sitting and walking meditation dissolves our separateness, at first from our own breath and body, then progressively through attention to sound, light, movement and landscape, it wears away our isolation from the wider world. Gradually we strip off the thin raincoat of our separation and even welcome getting wet through.
In terms of how we feel about ourselves and our life, this changes everything, enabling us to say with Yunmen, “Every day is a good day!” This means we can say that even on a day when the most terrible or difficult things happen, it’s still a good day. How can this be? It’s a deep shift of perspective. Our ability to value life is not now confined to what is happening to ourselves alone, whether this is enjoyable or anxious or painful for us, or even immensely sad. A new, deeper undercurrent is present, informing us that no matter what happens to us personally there is profound dignity and beauty in being human and in being part of this great universe. A central radiance stabilises. What we are is enough. More than enough!
When seeing and feeling become vast and wide like this, even for just a few seconds, even if we’re tired or sick or bereft or even dying at the time, we still rejoice that orcas are surfacing through the ice around Antarctica, elephants walk through the savannahs of Africa, children play and laugh, people sing and dance and make great music everywhere, our loved ones and friends are alive and doing their own thing somewhere, and when it’s dark the stars will come out and fill the sky with impossible splendour.
This has everything to do with how we come to care about what is happening in our world. How can we not care when ultimately we are it, and it is us? This inescapable identity wrenches open our heart.
© Arthur Wells, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Arthur Wells Roshi is a Zen Teacher in the Diamond Sangha Zen tradition.