New Year's Resolution: To Give Up More

long time - long time


forget peripheral things / involvements

On his blog One Foot in Front of the Other, a bodhisattva who goes by the name of Michael Thaler, or ohenro-san, is describing what it really is to give up everything.

Michael's account of his journey is an inspiration to understand more deeply what sitting-zen truly is.

Master Dogen wrote: "Taking plenty of time to forget peripheral things, naturally to become one piece: this is the vital art of sitting-zen."

Forgetting peripheral things, or forgetting involvements (EN O BOJIRU in Japanese), is also a kind of giving up.

I am not ready yet for the kind of giving up that Michael Thaler is describing, the giving up of everything.

But still I can practise giving up in my limited way. And, as I have promised Michael already, not forgetting his example, I will continue to practise giving up in my limited way, come what may. I can practise it by sitting in the lotus posture, as follows:

Firstly, I can give up the idea of becoming something or being somebody; I can give up the idea of being -- don't laugh -- a great teacher who can teach everybody everything. The most relevant line in Fukan-zazengi might be TOSABUTSU KOTO NAKARE, "Don't try to become a buddha!"

Secondly, in wishing to come undone, I can give up the idea of doing an undoing. The most relevant line in Fukan-zazengi might be MIMI TO KATA TO TAISHI, HANA TO HESO TO TAISE SHIMEN KOTO O YOSU, "It is vital to cause the ears vs the shoulders, and the nose vs the navel, to oppose each other." The problem of how to bring about that separation -- that lengthening release of unduly contracted and shortened muscles, that coming apart, coming unglued, coming undone -- was a core problem addressed by FM Alexander. FM Alexander clarified for his niece Marjory Barlow, and Marjory made it crystal clear to me, that we cannot do an undoing. But knowing intellectually that an idea is false, is not the same as truly giving it up. It only takes one Alexander lesson to understand intellectually the principle of directing, not doing. To truly and completely give up the idea, however, that I might be able to help the undoing process along with a bit of doing: that requires great patience. It may involve a growing acceptance of one's own fraudulence. By fraudulence I mean a self-deluding tendency to believe one is following one course, when one is actually following another course altogether.

Thirdly, I may be able to somersault from thinking into action, by giving up the idea of joining hands and bowing.

Master Dogen's revised instructions include the words KANKI ISSOKU SHI, lit. "Lack breath/vital-energy for one breath." This is not an instruction to take a deep breath -- it is an instruction to exhale fully, to expire. The earlier instructions just say IKI MO MATA TOTONOE, "let the breath also be regulated." My response to these instructions, over the years, has gradually evolved into the following modus operandi: I decide that I am going to join hands and bow, and at the same time I give up the idea of doing so. Instead of going directly for the end of joining hands and bowing, I come back to the instruction of causing the separation between ears and shoulders, and between nose and navel. If I have really given up the idea of joining hands and bowing, and also really and truly and totally given up the idea of doing anything to force ears and shoulders et cetera to release apart, a deep breath sometimes does itself. If there is no deep breath, I renew, with more serious determination (the kind of determination I learned in the martial arts) my decision to join hands and bow, while again giving up the idea of doing so. Eventually, a spontaneous deep inflow of breath takes place. When this happens, I join hands and bow while at the same time exhaling fully. Then I sway left and right. Then I stop where I feel (rightly or wrongly) the middle is, and endeavour to sit still without fixing.

The key to success in all the above is the giving up of an idea. First to give up the idea of being anything, then to give up the idea of doing anything to come undone, and then to give up the idea of joining hands and bowing.... and yet to join hands and bow.

The trick, in short, is to totally and utterly give up the idea of doing something, and thereby to let it do itself.

I first got this point 30 years ago in the context of competition karate, when I realized to my own astonishment that even as a novice with only one weapon in my armoury -- namely, a reverse counter punch -- I was able to beat experienced black belts.

Actually, I didn't get the point. The point got me. The point picked me up like a tsunami and beached me in bloody Japan; then it picked me up again and deposited me in a soulless but relatively safe haven called Aylesbury, on the outer edge of London's commuter belt, where I did three years of Alexander teacher training and then got stuck waiting for my sons to finish their education at the local grammar school.

After 30 years of trying to grasp the point, if the truth be told, I still haven't got it.

Even as I write, somewhere within me still lurks the idea that if I were to truly and completely give up the idea of trying to get it, I might thereby really get it, and thereby become -- don't laugh -- a great teacher who could teach everybody everything.

To give up everything, as Michael describes on his blog, is no easy thing. Even to give up a last little vestige of an old idea that put us wrong, is no easy thing. But if even the slightest trace of the old idea refuses to be given up, the truth of non-doing is turned into its dialectic opposite, and a deep breath does not come.

The non-advent of a deep breath, truly, is something to be grateful for. My restricted breathing lets me know that there is something for me to give up.

After something is given up, and a deep breath spontaneously comes, then one is truly free to expire.

It is never the point to be tempted by supposed short-cuts like breath counting or abdominal breathing. These are not short-cuts to anywhere; they are tainted, end-gaining approaches, geared to short-term results. Giving up takes time.

Michael, I shall join hands and bow to you. But not for the time being. If I truly give up the idea, a deep breath will come spontaneously.