The State After Zazen

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I practiced zazen only for a while in the morning. I don't mean it is something wrong. Anyway, later in the evening I didn't feel very balanced. So I tried to write something about Buddhism to encourage myself. But what I wrote felt kind of unnatural, artificial. Still, I at least encouraged myself to practice zazen and after zazen I can see what the problem was.

When we don't practice zazen or when we don't have some activity that makes us balanced, we feel someone should give us something, or entertain us. We are quite dependent on the outside world, but at the same time, although we are given thousand of great things, we cannot see or feel or hear them. So we feel frustrated or empty, not satisfied enough. Even if we eat something delicious, it not enough. But later I practiced zazen and right after that I went to the kitchen and washed some dishes. I saw the dishes were interesting and my feeling separate or lonely disappeared. Then I turned on the computer and noticed the desktop was blue. Usually I don't notice such things, but zazen wakes up these things, so you notice things and you realize htey are interesting. As you can freely and spontaneously observe things around you, there is no personal problem. The world is interesting and you are not so important. But before we practice zazen, we may feel separate and our lives seem very important while the outside world seems dull and not important enough. The dishes in the kitchen are not interesting, nothing is so great, just we want someone or something keep us entertained.

Of course, if you are a very busy person, you don't know what I am talking about. Especially if you are busy physically, you automatically wake up to the real world and may find it satisfying enough. But mostly we are busy forgetting what is important. We are busy doing things in our little personal world, which is different from being busy and open at the same time. To be busy in Buddhism doesn't mean there is not enough time, rather there are some activities going on at the present moment. So even if you act quickly, you are not in a hurry.

After zazen, nothing is boring, even the most ordinary things are interesting because you have never really seen them before. You see things as if for the first time. I can feel my fingers touching the keys of the keyboard.