When he woke from the glass dream, the backdeck beside the stretched out boxer-dog was surprisingly cool in the morning seabreeze, cooler than in the house for sure. He was happy he went wandering into undiscovered country of sharp edges and shallow angles across the freeways and railroad tracks. The aroma of rose petals and nightblooming jasmine still lingered in the air. He shivered as he woke up remembering, not from the chill breeze but from exhilaration.
He'd done something, gotten out of his angst, and entered otherworlds of which he previously knew not.
He would do more.
He entered the still hot house from the side door into the garage, then through the kitchen, padding on his Hush Puppies into the silent living room and down the hall to the bathroom where he relieved his overfull bladder in the toilet and brushed his teeth in the porcelain basin, checking in the mirror to see if he was still there. Wisps of whiskers decorated his face, but at fifteen-sixteen he didn't much care, he would shave perhaps in a few days or maybe not. When he shaved he usually cut open a pimple or two with blood dripping down his face reminding him of a time in another suburban house in another suburban city in another part of the state long ago, only not that long ago in the vast eternal scheme, where he'd wake up bloody-faced and in shock after a cat had taken umbrage at his face lying still on the soft pillow and had attacked with claws out and screaming. Practically every morning, claws out and screaming the cat attacked the boy's face and every morning he had to clean up the blood on his face and place antiseptic on the scratches and cuts. There was blood on his sheets and pillowcase too but he couldn't replace them every day, so he just turned them from one end of the bed to the other, over and over, hiding the blood stains that never completely came out in the wash.
Cats. And he loved cats.
As he cleaned up the morning after his bhikkhu wander, he had the kernel of an idea. In Big Sur, Jack repeats mention of Zen practice and Buddhism, how despite Jack's falling into madness at the crashing Pacific shack in the rat canyon, he could sit in meditation as he'd learned to do and for a time all the madness and crashing and fear would pass.
Dharma Bums was nothing but constant Zen. In its own way, On the Road was Zen, too.
What was it he wondered this Zen, and why was it so attractive? Who could tell him? He'd found the address of the San Francisco Zen Center, one of the rare Zen practice locations then in the USA. He decided to write his query. What is Zen? Can I do Zen? Where? How? In what way? I am so far away.
His letter went out on a Thursday. He received a response the next Tuesday, a handwritten note from someone named Robert or Richard or something, not Japanese but Anglo, "So glad you wish to know Zen, and learn to practice." With it came some scraps of literature, how to sit and be still and various suggestions for freeing your mind and concentrating on breathing.
All of it charming and yet it seemed so strict. He couldn't go to San Francisco, absolutely couldn't live there. Didn't have to. Practice wherever you happen to be, take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha. The Buddha is within you, the Dharma is you, the Sangha is whoever you happen to encounter on the Dharma Path whether they know it or not.
Correspondence continued back and forth with Robert or Richard or whoever it was at the San Francisco Zen Center for two or perhaps three months in the summer and fall, and then trailed off to nothing at all because there was no longer a need.
The angst-ridden teenager took to heart the brief instructions on How to Zen, and he set up a small meditation corner in his bedroom, a cushion on the floor, a scroll on the wall, and a bell. He learned to bow but he never did it well, always trying to bow too low or not low enough. His first attempts at sitting meditation, zazen, were rough as he wrestled with trying to establish and maintain the lotus position, but Robert or Richard or whatever his name was at the Zen Center said the boy didn't have to do that, no, sit with your legs crossed or sit with them under you, kneeling, or even sit in a straightback chair; it didn't really matter. As long as you could sit undisturbed and reasonably comfortably, quietly for ten minutes, twenty, as long or as short a time as seemed valuable, concentrating on your breathing and letting go. That's all. No wrestling, no trying, desireless being and not-being.
Thoughts and ideas and urges would flood your mind as you sat in meditation, don't try to overcome what comes into your mind, just let it come and let it go, and over time as you sit in meditation (zazen) the flood would abate on its own and continue until... there was nothing. Your mind would be free. Just sit. Breathe. For as long as need be, no longer, and then you can go back to your life and its many requirements and demands and they become part of your practice as well.
Each movement and non-movement can be practice, is practice, and doing this or that whatever it may be -- whether walking to the corner market or picking up a few things for lunch or bathing the dog or yourself, whatever it may be, driving up to the mountains for a retreat or intensive work and study and sitting in sesshin, whatever, it doesn't matter, it isn't matter, it's transformed and it's part of your practice.
When these were totally new ideas, the boy had difficulty digesting them or understanding them (you can't understand them just be them do them) but nevertheless persevered in practice more or less as instructed, for the initial period relentlessly, three times a day, sometimes more, sitting in meditation for up to half an hour, forty five minutes, till cramping set in and he had to break off and spontaneously discovered walking meditation, kinhin, just walking and paying attention, not wandering mindlessly, was practice too and relieved the physical cramping attendant on sitting meditation.
He thought of his ramble that night into the sharp-edged and shallow-angled neighborhood across the way and of the scent of jasmine and rose petals. These were thoughts and memories in his mind. While sitting he let them go, but while kinhin, they would not go away.
He would retrace his steps, but first he would practice in his own neighborhood, saving till later or possibly not at all the miles-long walk and wander he had gone on before.
Practice, practice, practice.
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