Control fires and the art of letting it burn.

I've been bothered recently by how my Zen practice has changed. I haven't sat in meditation for maybe two weeks, haven't attended sangha in quite a bit more than that (part of that was because I was seeing someone who was only available on weekends), and have felt kind of 'caught up' in my off-the-cushion life: thesis research, paperwork, teaching, catching up with everyone I've fallen off the map from, and in general figuring out where to go from here.

And I think this is good for me, too. If I could label what's going on here, I could call it 'control burning'. You see, in forestry and managing forest fires, the prevailing wisdom for the first half of the 20th century was to prevent forest fires as they sprang up. This led to forests being choked with thick undergrowth and lots of flammable organic matter waiting for a spark.

But foresters realized that forest fires played an important ecological role in not only clearing undergrowth, but also setting the stage for another round of ecological succession. Ashes released potassium into the soil. Some species of conifer only release their seeds when their cones are burned by fire. First- and second-generation colonizing plants (like clover and other 'weeds') regenerated soils depleted by old-growth trees.

Source: texasagriculture.gov

Similarly, I realized that sometimes, you need to let go and let things burn for a while. This most recent round of psycho-ecological succession was not altogether unpleasant: I could hardly call it a 'burn', but the same idea applies. One of the things I burned was my attempts to make Zen into a replacement for the religion I was raised into (fundamentalist Baptist and evangelical Christianity), one that sees your existence as fundamentally problematic and offers the One True Way to make it right again. I remember writing in my journal a few months ago: "If I don't become a Zen master by the time I'm 50, I'll fucking shoot myself." That came out of an idea that everything that led to my becoming 'sane' was somehow external to myself.

Zen is fertile ground for all sorts of 'curative fantasies' to spring up. One of those curative fantasies was the idea that somehow, if I meditated long enough, if I followed the Five Precepts to the letter (refraining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and taking intoxicants), if I stopped at the sound of a bell and followed my breaths x number of times every day, then I could finally achieve that state of imperturbable calm and stillness that I was longing for.

But I quickly found that even on the cushion, it wasn't always possible to wedge my mind into that fantasy. When you're sitting, you're not retreating from reality: you're becoming a container for everything you're experiencing in that reality in that exact moment. And it's a lot: the clicking of the ceiling fan, the stuffiness of the room, the movements of your internal organs, the beating of your heart, the slight ache in your knees and shoulders, your racing thoughts.

It gets overwhelming, and you wonder whether you're doing it wrong. Enough of that and you realize that Zen is useless. Because it is --- if the goal you set for Zen practice is to become a marble statue, then you'll quickly find Zen useless to that goal. People by their very nature aren't made of stone; they're human beings, and human beings will never wake up (individually or collectively) if they keep loading spiritual practice with all these curative fantasies, when the purpose of spiritual and religious practice is to become more present and connected with life as it is. Or at least as it seems.

If it gets overwhelming, you're doing it right. Lean into it, or let it burn.

Follow your bliss and cultivate the opposite impulse.

It just occurred to me that I never improved in any measure of my life by focusing on the problems. I didn't become a functional human being after years of social anxiety and depression by fixating on the particulars of my anxiety and depression; instead, I constructed an image of self that wasn't in a constant state of existential panic over his dysfunction --- and followed my bliss.

By the way, concerning the phrase 'follow your bliss' --- this is credited to the late Joseph Campbell, one of the foremost scholars in the public discourse over religion and values. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that one of my supervisors at my tutoring job had read Joseph Campbell; Cracked.com had a video some time ago where one of the characters referenced the "Hero's Journey". He's got a deep public impact (but mostly the older and college-educated), and I think he's got a point: follow your bliss.

Following your bliss entails risk. It requires sacrifices in other areas of your lives, and sometimes it's a real dilemma to decide which parts get the cut, and which parts you work for. This sounds a lot like work, though, when it's qualitatively different: we in this society are often defined by our work, and before I drag Marx and the commodification of labor into this already-tottering thought, I'll just talk about following your bliss. Do it. I only decided to finish grad school because I was so close to finishing anyways, and negotiated an image of self that included having a master's degree, student debt, an increasing number of funerals to attend in upcoming years, and financial insecurity. And am following my bliss through that (not despite that).

'Bliss' may not be the best word for it, then. I'd just say 'growth', and remind the reader that you are responsible for your growth, and have more power to choose which direction you grow in than you think you have. Oak trees grow enormous tapering taproots which, through the particulars of biology and ecology, follow sources of water and soil nutrients over time, plotting the least energy-intensive paths to obtain what they need. So do the same. Often what we tell ourselves is more important than what is possible.