Day 22

My mom and I took my grandmother to the Huntington Gardens for Rosh Hashanah so she could stop and smell the roses. This is the grandmother that takes nineteen different pills a day. The moment she found out that there would be walking involved, she turned into this whiny child. "I don't wanna, you go without me, why did you bring me here, why did you feed me beforehand, I don't wanna see anything, I'm just gonna sit right here." We stopped at the first bench we saw and sat. Every once in a while, I saw glimpses of joy in her. She wouldn't admit it, of course. But her eyes would lit up and she'd be looking around in wonderment. Then, she'd catch herself and start sulking again. We did get to the rose garden eventually. The aroma penetrated my nostrils. My grandmother said that she did not smell anything.

The glimpses of joy that I saw in my grandmother was who she really is, the rest was all the old conditioning and patterns of the mind. And because we tend to confuse the two, we believe that these patterns are who we really are. So, as not to lose this concept of ourselves, we hold on to them. Even when our essence is showing us the way and is telling us, "come hither," we ignore it and say that it's not who I am, I am who I'm used to hearing in my head, "That's my story and I'm sticking to it."

Watching her, I watched for any stories that arose in my own mind. Even when you know the truth, they tend to slip in under the facade of "I know better." Just noticing that is already a break in the story.

The Practice

Morning meditation - 30 minutes
Evening meditation at ZCLA - 30 minutes
Dharma talk given by one of the Zen priests and a 20 year practitioner - 1 hour

Reflection

I wanted to ask the Zen priest about this alleged duality that could happen between meditating and the rest of my life. But as she continued talking about her practice and experience, I realized that the only duality that exists is the one we create within ourselves regardless of the practices. Meditation is an inherent part of her life, but I didn't sense any duality in her. There was a seamless through line in her and the more I wanted to ask her about this duality business, the more I felt that split within myself. If I feel a separation in experience from one to the next, it has nothing to do with what I'm doing and everything to do with how I'm perceiving my experience.