Sitting with Myself
By Andy Robins
In my Zen training over the last couple of weeks, I have begun to notice a divide that exists between me (my ego), putting 'me' at the center of the result, against a more profound sense of self (my true nature) which sees the issue with radical honesty. This divide arises in all situations and is sure to keep me suffering through its opposition. I feel strongly about what I should do, but my ego puts up a massive fight to maintain my identity by not confronting reality.
Now that I have started watching closely, it pops up all the time, and I have to make the call to go with reality or fold back into my ego's comfort zone. Yesterday I was collecting my children Obama and Diana from nursery school. They are always so pleased to see me, reacting like two puppy dogs, tails wagging, lively and playful, and wanting my full attention. Their energy was flowing freely, indeed a ball on fast-moving waters; it is a beautiful time of the day. Still, my ego has a plan hard-wired to what it wants rather than what is happening at that moment. A thought arises, telling me that I am tired and that I, too, have just finished work and deserve a break. A cup of tea dangling in front of me; the evening news is playing on the television. My ego at its best, trying to drag me away from something in which it has no part, the threat of wholeness and connection capable of soaking into the marrow of my bones and refreshing me beyond anything it can conjure.
Its 6 am, and I am sitting zazen, faces peering at me from a screen; something stirs, “Be truthful, speak directly to reality, let the sideshow pass.”
Its 6 am, and I am sitting zazen, faces peering at me from a screen; something stirs, “Be truthful, speak directly to reality, let the sideshow pass.” It's a game of my ego filtering a lifetime of experiences, beliefs, opinions, and prejudices, ensuring conformity with my own identity; nothing slips through the net. I am a six-year-old home from school and watching T.V. an advert appears the picture black and white, a voice telling me how to take shelter during a nuclear attack. My mum is talking about her fears of nuclear war, the threat of missiles from the enemy: The USSR. Its Saturday. I stand next to my Dad, looking up at well-spoken gentry riding on horseback; a farmworker standing next to me doffs his well-worn tweed cap as the riders pass. The shrill call of the hunting horn as the fox breaks cover, the hounds cry, the chase is on.
I am sixteen years old, standing on a Royal Naval parade ground as the sun beats down on the top of my white cap, my new black boots uncomfortable in the heat. The parade instructor stands to my left, his face inches from the face of the boy next to me. The instructor's chest lifts, and his chin dips as he yells, Pratt by name, Pratt by nature; the ridicule penetrates us all. No smiles, no laughs, just a fearful silence clings to the air. That's me; that's who I am, an identity, a set of firmly held beliefs collected over a lifetime of changing circumstances and continually filtered through me to reaffirm my opinion and prejudices. Thirty years later, I am on a march in London with my family and a million others, the government threatening to ban fox hunting with dogs. We are all suffering and outraged; it is our birthright to hunt foxes with dogs. Back to the mat, a long exhale, I let it go! There I go creating my suffering through my opposition to reality, clinging to a garbage collection of thoughts, driven by an identity of right and wrongs.
My practice deepens. I am in here looking for division, unresolved conflicts. It’s no self-improvement exercise. Have you tried speaking the truth from a place of reality and not a world of mind made hocus-pocus? I am trying to align my humanness and all its failings and frailty with that of my guiding star, mindful of the ego's ever-waning influence and that it hasn’t yet given up the fight.
Andy Robins is a Zen Priest, Zen Leadership Instructor and Coach
