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.