Inhabit the Heart

“Conveying oneself toward all things to carry out practice-enlightenment is delusion. All things coming and carrying out practice-enlightenment through the self is realization.” – from Dogen’s Genjokoan as translated by Shohaku Okumura

We have the tendency to effort much more than is necessary. Even when we are sitting to meditate, it is not unusual to hold unnecessary tension in the hips, the shoulders, the jaw, the brow. When these tensions become conscious we can work with them with varying degrees of success: focussing on restfulness and release or observing the tensions dissolve under our attentive gaze.

We may discover that at the source of our tension is a belief that there is something we must do to meet the moment, that there is a self that needs to be gathered to experience the meditation. We believe there is a self that thinks, that sits, and that meditates.

In the same way we also believe there is a self that experiences the world. This belief can be challenging to detect. In my experience it requires the courage and curiosity of experimentation: what happens if I ‘allow’ this moment to occur without imposing a judgment or an expectation upon it? What happens if I do not interfere? The first thing I may discover is how judgmental I am, how strong my preferences are and how much I want to control the outcome of my experiences. I notice I am contracted in a generalized way- holding unnecessary tension. In other words I am efforting because a part of me believes that is what I must do.

Mindfulness helps me to see these beliefs snd to see the consequences of them. I may wish to be liberated from my patterns but the consequence of these beliefs is that I am bound to them. I may wish to experience transcendence, but the consequence of these beliefs is that I am gripped by the illusion of a solidified self. I may wish to experience enlightenment, but the consequence of these beliefs is that I cling to the idea that there is a self to become enlightened.

There are already times when you spontaneously open to experience. I took this picture of my daughter many moons ago because it captures this opening. Like a flower turning to the sunshine, she too lifts her head to face the warm rays. The bliss she experiences is evident, as is the ease with which she experiences it. Is it the sunshine that brings her joy, or the openness she experiences as she bathes in it?

I invite you to play with this idea of ‘opening to experience’. You can start with something you perceive as pleasurable (such as gazing at a flower or smelling your favourite meal) but openness is not conditional on the object’s subjective value (good, bad, right, wrong, pleasurable, unpleasurable). It is rather a quality of relating to experience itself. Notice any relationship between openness and effort, openness and a sense of Self, both in your formal meditation practice and in daily life.