The Natural Practice
It is nearly midnight on a Sunday night. The sky is filled with dark clouds and there are a few raindrops falling to earth. I know this because I often practice zazen, as I just did, outside in the open air.
Such practice reminds me of the Buddha and his followers, practicing and living as they did, outside exposed to the elements. Rain, snow, heat, wind, no matter: they practiced their lives without anything but a bowl and a robe.
There is something wonderful about that practice. We sit with the earth and sky as they are and we learn “as they are” is enough. Simple, straightforward practice with the world as it is.
Such practice allows us to experience the distractions of a fly landing on one’s face, searching for something and scampering along over nose and eye brows. We don’t disturb the fly. We simply witness it. Through such experiences we learn something: we don’t have to move. We can just sit.
To just sit is to stop. Stopping is something we rarely do. Our mind is always in motion. Always demanding something of us, yet through our practice those demands are just like the breeze across our face or that fly squatting down to rest on the tip of our nose. Something to experience. Something to let go.
May we each find it in ourselves to retreat outside, paying attention without engaging.
The reward is the practice itself.
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