A Practice For What?

Way back when I first started dating Helene she caught me in a big lie and almost dumped me. For her, lying is a deal breaker. The strange thing was I could see from her perspective that I was a liar but until she called me on it, I did not see that I was lying.

I promised her that from that moment on I would be as honest with me as I was with her. And I have spent almost a decade peeling back the layers of lies I tell myself everyday as a means of keeping that promise. Somewhere along the way she must have seen that I was sincere as she did finally marry me.

Through this experience I have a hard time looking at homophobic conservative preachers and politicians caught with their “fingers” up inside the “cookie jar” claiming, “It was all a miscommunication!” with anything other than compassion. On some level or another, we are all sneak eaters.

Still, as most of my friends will tell you, no matter how many layers of self-deceit I dig though, I will always be full of shit. That’s why I need BS detectors in my life, like Helene, to keep me honest.

Recently a friend of mine invited me to one of her upcoming gigs. I looked on my calendar and had to decline as I was going to be sitting that weekend at Zen Mountain Center in California. “Damn,” she said, “you’re always going off somewhere for Zen.”

“Yes,” I replied piously, “It’s part of my practice.”

“A practice for what? Avoiding your life?”

Her comment pissed me off and I should have looked at it right there. If she was wrong, I would have laughed as it was said playfully not maliciously. The fact that I was pissed and indignant should have told me that I was lying to myself about something.

Three weeks ago Dogo Sensei lent me the DVD How To Cook Your Life: with Zen Chef Edward Espe Brown. I loved the film so much that as soon as it ended I looked Brown up and saw that he was doing an all day workshop at Green Gulch Zen Center on April 18 and running the Sunday service April 19. In investigating it, further several other details made it so that could have flown there, stayed with family in the area, and done the whole event for less than $100.00. I felt like the timing of it all was a sign and that I was being called to go. (Called by who you might ask.)

Then I looked at my calendar. Damn! A Zazenkai on April 18 here with the Sitting Frog Zen Sangha. I picked up the phone. “Well,” I thought, “I’m just going to call Dogo Sensei and tell him he has to run this one on his own. After all, it’s not like I would be blowing the Sangha off for the Coachella Music Festival. Seeing Edward Espe Brown is Zen! I’d be blowing them off for my practice.”

Then my friend’s words pierced me, “A practice for what? Avoiding your life?”

I put down the phone and started my April Zazenkai To Do List.

photo by Vegar Svanemyr