Expert: Joe McSorley - 1/30/2009

Question
QUESTION: Joe,

I've studied martial arts for many years, but I'm new to zen meditation. In the past, I sort of "went through the motions", but now, I believe I'm doing very well. My breathing has improved as has my outlook on everything. In the beginning, I used to meditate for twenty minutes in the morning and it felt like hours. Now, the time flies by and during the day, I feel energized.  My problem is this:  My goal in starting meditation was to get more connected to my breathing (short term) and to feel more connected to people (long term). Specifically, I was looking for that feeling of shared experience ("we're all in this together"). Unfortunately, I actually feel distanced from people. It's not that I'm judging them, but I feel like I'm so open and aware and they're like I used to be - closed and self-obsessed.  Will this feeling eventually pass or is my post-meditation ego hampering my growth?

ANSWER: Hi Steve,
  I don’t mean this to be in any way harsh but you are in fact judging people to think they are not open or aware like you.  They may or may not be but to make a comment about it is a judgment and it is a typical and understandable thing to do.  We all do it.  It is taking this standpoint or any standpoint that separates us from other people and things.  We constantly make judgments about things; they are fat, thin, big, small, soft, and hard or any of millions of other judgments we make.  In Eastern thought this is called ‘differentiated thought’ and it means we know things by how they are different from us but we do not know them as they are to themselves.  We never know anything for what it is but only for what it is in relationship to other things.  Even in ourselves we know that we are because we are not those other things we observe.  We know that we are but we don’t know who we are. All we can observe is those things we are not.  Anything we perceive cannot be our self because to perceive it means that it has to stand apart from us to be an object of our perception.  Even the idea of wanting to connect with people creates the disconnection from them.  It does this because by wanting to connect you stand apart from them to want to connect.  So long as you maintain a self that stands apart from the other that is striving to connect to the other, you are creating that separation.  To think ‘I am here and they are there’ is what creates the separation, it is the fundamental working of human consciousness to do this.  To be the other means to lose the self.  To lose the self means you don’t experience the other because you have lost yourself and now you have a dilemma.  How can I be myself and yet still know another? How can I be the other and still have an experience as myself? This becomes the paradox of true awakening and is impossible in normal human consciousness.
  I know this is mind bending thought but I hope you really think about it deeply.  In an attempt to connect there is a self that wants to connect.  This self, just by being a self, is automatically disconnected.  This is why meditation must be done without expectation and without a concern for your own personal view.  Your own personal view separates you from seeing reality. When you were trying to lose your consciousness of breathing you actually made yourself more conscious of breathing.  Through long practice you ‘connected’ to breathing and lost consciousness of it, it became you.  When you are conscious of it, it is not you but something you do and not something you ‘are’.  Likewise your awareness will change as you practice.  There will not be a pre and post sense of ego, self and other will dissolve and reconstruct in a thorough going manner.
  Since your practice is already productive I hope you continue on this path.  Pay no attention to pre or post and have no expectation, just practice.  The point is to have this attentiveness to practice all the time, not just in meditation.  It is not till it becomes you that the practice disappears.  You will continue to see things differently than other people but let go of that too, let go of Steve’s perspective, try to see without your self behind it. Your practice will be fruitful.
 I hope this helps you.  Take care,
         Joe


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Joe,

I appreciate your comments and will keep practicing. I do have to admit that based on your response, I feel like I have a long way to go. That said, it would be really helpful to hear about a time when you were struggling with your meditation practice and what you did to get past the rough patch.

Answer
Dear Steve,
 You may perceive it as a long way to go but once you lock into it, it could be very fast, so don’t get discouraged by a time frame.  Just keep at it and let it work on you invisibly.
   Most of the people I know who study Zen or Eastern philosophy come to it because they found it interesting and something they wanted to study.  They feel a resonance with the practice and they learn the accoutrements of whatever school they are in.  I did not come to it because I wanted to study it and never really had an interest in Zen per se.  I came to it because I had a severe mental plight/existential dilemma that I could not resolve.  I went to everyone I could to find an answer to it.  Western religions had no idea of how to handle it and it wasn’t until I met Wing Tsit Chan, author of A Source Book on Chinese Philosophy, that I got any direction at all.  He acknowledged my dilemma and sent me to my teacher, Dr. DeMartino, to resolve it.  DeMartino had studied in Japan for decades and was a student of D.T. Suzuki.  He was the driving force in my approach and understanding of Zen but more importantly he fully understood my plight.  He did not stress meditation or any other practice other than to face the self in the moment at all times.
   I tell you this because I did not approach Zen through a school or meditation practice so I was not concerned with the techniques of meditation; I only wanted to solve the dilemma.  For me it was a personal koan that needed to be answered and it is how I came at Zen. Ultimately all Zen practice aims at stopping the reflective or ego process.  Zazen, mindfulness, sanzen and koan practice all do the exact same thing; stop the ego.  Zen meditation done right is the same as the other modes and is the most popular.  True meditation does not stop in the Zendo but overcomes your life so it is ‘sitting, standing, walking, eating”.  It is the same for the other modalities; they must become you completely.
  The rough patches for me were because of self absorption with my ‘life’.  By this I mean too much concern for the person whom I perceived my self to be and whose desires I was a slave to.  To just free yourself from a personal viewpoint is to be a zombie but to be overly concerned with your own view is just a fruitless.  There were times of great personal loss in my life when I had neither the inclination nor desire to continue my practice.  At those times my teachers would tell me, “just put one foot in front of the other’.  In other words, have no expectation and don’t look forward, just keep at it.  When you practice with expectation you defeat yourself.  One of my favorite expressions came from this time in my life; how do you eat an elephant?  Answer: one bite at a time.  No matter how daunting the task might be just be where you are and deal with it as it is at this moment. Neither project nor look back but just deal with it now.  Eventually it will pay off.  This ended up being the most fruitful way for me.
  I hope this helps you.   Take care,
        Joe