I’m struggling to engage with the idea of Karma—that my circumstances, whatever they happen to be, are the result of my own actions and thoughts. My own responsibility.
Not the reincarnation kind-of karma: as far as I can tell, that’s science fiction, and so not on the radar of my experience. What is on my radar is the gritty, dirt-under-your-fingernails, slogging through hard times, fight-or-flight, near-edge of panic, my-life-is-out-of-my-control, holy-hell-how-do-I-deal-with-this, everyday crisis kind-of karma.
When things feel like they’re going to—or have already gone—sideways, in free fall, what’s my part in it?
Recently, that’s been my moment-to-moment reality.
Mid-summer, my work circumstances—circumstances I believed were as solid as granite under my feet—turned to sand and slid away from me. For the first time in more than 30 years, I was waking up every morning without knowing what the day was going to hold; without an identity I’d been conscientiously, carefully—unconsciously—building.
Every.
Single.
Day.
Of those 30 years.
And that identity: an edifice of bullshit.
I mean, who are we, really? That’s a question that I’ve understood intellectually. After all, trying to deal with that exact nagging uncertainty was a key engine driving me to zen practice in the first place. A practice I began seriously 38 years ago. So it isn’t like it’s a new question or a fresh itch.
I’ve had plenty of moments in those 38 years where that intense uncertainty cracked me open in one way or another, to be sure: a handful of koans that blew the doors of my mind open or cracked my heart open, and some crystalline moments of amazement on and off the cushion, lovely transcendently beautiful moments with my wife and family that blew me wide, wide, open. Honestly, moments of true grace at work, as well. So, no absolutes. Not really one way or another, but, still.
I was at work a minimum of 5 days a week, about 50 weeks a year, for 30 years. That’s 7,500 days—at least 8 hours a day. Lots and lots of weekends thrown in, and way too many days for 10, 12, 16, 18, even 24 hours. It was that all-consuming-kind-of job. I was away from work about 100 days a year, so about 3000 days over the course of the same 30 years.
Basically, two-thirds of my life over the last three decades has been spent at work. For most of that two-thirds, I tried to be a version of myself I wanted to be. I didn’t always succeed. I think that’s probably true for all of us: but I can only speak from my own experience, and in that experience, I sometimes lost sight of that version of myself that was living with intention and focus. I sometimes did what was easiest, what was expedient, what felt most urgent at any given moment. What maybe felt like the best decision for work, but wasn’t likely always the best decision for me. In those rushed, intense, pressured moments, I know I sometimes stumbled. As I stumbled, I was building that identity: do what needs to be done—be who you need to be in that context. That context may, or may not, be healthy. Whether or not it feels right doesn’t necessarily enter into the action; I did it without thinking, without breathing.
One makes those usually small choices that seem necessary but are compromises in one way or another long enough, and you lose the ground in a different way: the ground of practice, the ground of intention, of holding yourself accountable for your choices. There’s karma, right there: you make choices you’re uneasy about, that maybe nag at you in some small way or some big way, and those choices have consequences. You’re practicing something, to be sure—you always are—but exactly what?
Those choices, those consequences, add up to an identity: what’s karma, after all, but an accumulation of choices? A calcified accumulation of clinging, an identity? Sometimes choices manifest in obvious ways, and sometimes they manifest years later—the point is, every choice we make—every choice I’ve made—in every moment is, has been, an opportunity to embrace each moment with fresh perspective, with a fresh breath. Sometimes I’ve embraced that, and sometimes I haven’t. When we don’t pay attention—when we make rash or subtly dissonant choices, and miss that opportunity—we’re laying down a little bit of karma, a little brick in an edifice of identity built on sand. An edifice of bullshit.
And, the thing is, we are our choices. If karma is the result of each choice we make—the end result of each moment—then we are quite literally, our karma. We own that. 100%, whether we like it in the moment, or not. It’s still us. It’s still me—and I’m completely, unequivocally, responsible for that. I’ve built that identity myself—for protection, for comfort, for the sake of expediency. It’s a house of brick and mortar. And it’s a house of sand. My house.
For me, that’s a giant hook: so what’s the thing about karma? How do I break that cycle of action, responsibility, reaction, responsibility, and suffering—from the dissonance between who I am in action, and who I might be in intention? How do I actualize a more realized, more awake, path?
When we make that different choice: that choice that comes from a quieter place, from that fresh breath, we maybe strike a little crack in that edifice. Those fresh breaths, that continuous practice—that zazen, carried off the cushion—that breaks down that solidity, dissolves the bricks, sometimes cracks them open. Sometimes cracks you open. Wide open. And in that cracked open space, in that moment, the ground is simply gone. I find myself falling through that sand. There’s some courage there, some strength that’s outside of any identification—courage in simply letting that protective, carefully constructed shell dissolve.
Just.
Falling.
Through.
Sand.
I’ve been on-and-off feeling a raw edge of intense anxiety, a raw, open edge of panic; my nervous system running with dangerously overloaded circuitry, working overtime to cling to something that’s already gone. Some of it is probably simply circumstantial: what do I do next? What’s the next thing that needs to be done? Not all of it, however, is.
There is another, much deeper layer of anxiety demanding attention and care: that anxiety of not knowing, of not having that easy, simply obvious identity of 30-odd years’ work to rely on—that absolute terror of everything you know, everything you think you are, falling away. There’s just no edifice left; the mortar holding the house together dissolving, identity collapsed in shifting sand. Sand I’ve fallen through. Just. Falling. And then, who am I right now?
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche said once: ‘practice is like jumping out of an airplane with no parachute.
The good news: there’s no ground.’
Equal parts terrifying and exhilarating.
Right now, who am I?
It doesn’t matter. I’m just going to go ahead and keep falling.
Your comments are always welcomed and encouraged. We’d love to hear from you (whoever we are).
One more thing.
As a zen priest I’m a student of Tenshin Fletcher Roshi at Yokoji Zen Mountain Center. For more info on Yokoji, please visit www.zmc.org.
I’m also the caretaker of Warwick Zendo, a small in-person and online sangha based in the lower Hudson Valley of New York. if you’d like to check out our practice community, we’re at www.warwickzen.org.
How this works.
I plan to post at least once a week, at minimum. The Freeside will offer those weekly posts, which will always be accessible. Payside will (eventually) offer access to some longer writing and ongoing investigations into practices both literary and zen.
Payside also helps to sustain this project, and this practice. Like any creative project, keep sweeping is a kind of labor, and as such, your support to sustain that labor is much appreciated.
If Payside is not for you, that’s all good. The posts will keep coming on Freeside. The support of your reading and attention is a deeply appreciated gift, and I thank you for being here.
You won’t have to worry about missing anything. Every new edition of the newsletter goes directly to your inbox.