5 December 2006
Every Day Is a Good Day
St Helena, CA
Last night at the zendo in Santa Rosa turned out to be an important one, even if the sitting was at times difficult. I did notice, though, that I was far less judgmental and self-critical about it all. There actually were a few moments when I found myself sinking into myself, into my body. And I believe that the phrase “found myself” is an apt one here. It wasn’t an action. No doing. I wasn’t even looking for myself. So, there wasn’t that momentary elation as happens when I “find” my glasses, or my car keys. Finding on this deeper level occurs when I stop seeking. And it is when I stop seeking that I begin noticing.
After the meditation, while we were all getting tea, I was speaking with another fellow traveler. We had finished our conversation and I was just about to return to my seat when John came over to greet me by name. (He usually does this, but each time I am surprised that he remembers it for some reason.) He put his arm around my shoulder and said how good it was to see me again. And then he did something that was extraordinary in its simplicity – he leaned his head over so that the side of his forehead touched the side of mine. A simple gesture. Yet to me in that moment it felt probably the way devout Catholics feel about a papal blessing. In that moment I did feel blessed, but not by John, rather with John. A big difference, I suspect.
The koan he introduced into the meditation was a timely one:
Every day is a good day.It’s a bit longer than that, but that is the gist.
As I sat with myself (during those few moments when I found myself sinking into myself), I noticed two experiences almost simultaneously. One is that I am of this day, that this day is inseparable from me and my comprehension of the day. At the same time I noticed how independent the day is from my judgments and reviews about it.
The koan doesn’t say, “Make this a great day!” the way some motivational speakers might exhort me to do. Nor does the koan suggest that I “have a good day”. The koan is descriptive, rather than proscriptive. This day, every day, is a good day because that is the essential nature of a day.
Of course in his talk, John was able to expand on this beyond the terrain I traversed during the meditation. (Even as I wrote that sentence, I noticed a lack of judgment that is refreshing. His insights were not “better”, and maybe not even clearer. They were just more expansive.) The question he settled on – the one that it evoked for him was: How do we find freedom?
John then used the upcoming holidays as a way to ground the question in everyday experience. He offered the possibility that we could each approach, or enter into, the holidays without expectations. He said, “… the prison of expectations brings unhappiness… [but] enjoyment is a choice.” After that he asked another practical, yet profound, question: Can I be free –have a good day – without controlling others?
This urge to control others as a way to manage expectations is one that he has spoken of before, but for some reason – maybe all the looming family gatherings where we each bring our mortars and pestles along to grind each other into smaller, more manageable bits – brought this urge to control others into higher relief.
Finally, John spoke about memory. He spoke of it in the context of family stories and how we can be hooked into them. For me, though, his words about memory struck a deeper chord. He said simply, “Memory can be a kind of shrine… When we are free, memory becomes another felt experience.”
That phrase, memory can be a kind of shrine, felt like a sharp knife cutting through a veil. For a moment I could see beyond the shrine, beyond some of my delusions. For the briefest moment I realized that all this time he was speaking about something he mentioned in passing at the beginning of his talk – the nature of joy.
It seems that, like finding ourselves, I/we also find freedom and joy when we stop seeking them out, by letting them just be.