So... Another Bite At the Apple So To Speak

Chapter 5 of A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life (Guarding Alertness) was the study we were engaged in when we were treated to... The Man Who Knows Everything the other day. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who had, shall we say, a negative reaction to his presentation and had to work through some things during and afterwards to guard their own altertness in the face of his onslaught. Hm. Well, anyway, last evening we had another Dharma talk on the same chapter, this time from one of the center's own staff a teacher, prison counselor and priest, the same one with whom I had practice interview a few days ago, and his focus was on one aspect of the chapter, an aspect I really hadn't noticed previously (no surprise):

Procrastination

A very commonplace human trait, no? Well, yes. Oh yes. How well I know! We put off tasks -- or a least I do -- sometimes over and over again because..... ? Well, why? 

I thought of one of many things I've been procrastinating over, this one for more than a year: trimming some of the dead branches from the trees around our place.

It's a complicated, potentially dangerous task that requires:

• planning
• preparation
• proper tools
• right state of mind
• agility
• confidence
• determination
• energy
• skill

Hopefully a helper, too. Well, my helper hasn't been around for quite some time. Exactly what happened to him, I'm not sure. But I haven't seen him, and I'm afraid he may have passed away. The last time I saw him he was not well, and what with the COVID and all... He stopped coming around and no one I've talked to has seen him for months.

As for the other things, I have assembled tools, done some planning, but I'm not very good with much of the rest. I cut down one branch last year that was touching an electric line, and I wouldn't say it went exactly well. I think I missed getting brained by the falling branch by a couple of inches probably because I'd miscalculated where I should place the ladder. As it was, the falling branch ripped my shirt and put a welt on my back. It wasn't a serious wound, but it gave me pause. 

I don't have a lot of agility because my joints have stiffened, but I can get around and climb a ladder and such. I may be slow, but I get there eventually. My confidence level -- that I can do these things -- is not quite as high as it once was, but as a rule, if I set out to accomplish a task I believe I can get it done. If I start, I am generally determined to finish and usually do so unless something completely unexpected interferes. 

My energy level is better since I started taking prednisone again last fall when I was feeling immense fatigue almost all the time. It's a consequence of my condition and the medications I take, and there's not a lot I can do about it. Low doses of prednisone, though, help. Fatigue is going to dog me no matter what. But we learn to cope with it -- well, that's something of a stretch. Let's say I make do.

My skills are so-so. I can do the task, but not as well as a professional might. This has been my way through thick and thin most of my life with pretty much anything. I can do things. But do them well? Enh. Maybe. Maybe not.

State of mind is the one that has kept me procrastinating, I think more than anything. If I don't feel I'm ready, I'm not going to do it, whatever it is, and getting ready can take a long time. Or readiness may never come.

I'm procrastinating. I admit it. It's no shame in my view. I'm simply not ready to take on this important task of trimming dead branches yet. I may never be. My intent may be there, but if I don't feel I can mentally and physically accomplish it with relative safety for myself and others, I won't do it. Some would call that "wisdom." Others might say "cowardice."

Let's get back to the Dharma talk dealing with procrastination. I honestly had never considered "procrastination" in the terms and context I heard yesterday. Apparently, the Dharma teacher had done some scholarly research and found there were two "official" types of procrastination, one based in distraction or as I believe he put it: "craving" and one based in aversion. 

If you let your phone, for example, keep sending you alerts when you should be doing something important -- such as zazen or studying Shantideva, our tasks for this practice period -- and you let those alerts or what have you keep you from sitting zen or studying the Bodhisattva Way, then you're procrastinating due to distraction or a craving.

If on the other hand you see the important task in front of you as something unpleasant that you don't want to do -- like mucking out the cat box -- and you put it off, then you're procrastinating due to aversion.

Well... I have always seen distraction and craving as distraction and craving, not procrastination, and aversion as aversion to doing something, not procrastination. 

Procrastination is putting something off for some reason that applies to that task. You may not want to do it for some reason which would be aversion to the task, or perhaps you can't do it. Alternatively, maybe you're not ready. So you consciously stall and delay. Drag out your preparations. Find excuses not to do it. And hope, maybe, the need for the task will disappear or the problem will solve itself. In fact doing nothing is sometimes the best solution.

The commentary/Dharma talk was essentially that Shantideva suggests that if you do these things, put off doing something you should, you've bought a ticket straight to hell. You can't procrastinate, you have to sit with your studies and your Awakening Mind all the time and not.... procrastinate? What?

I'm actually not clear about what he says was being procrastinated over. If you know you should do it, but you're not doing it because you're distracted or you're averse to doing it, are you procrastinating? Do you actually have any intention to do it?

On the other hand, are you procrastinating when you choose one priority over another? We live in a day to day world of competing priorities for our attention and time. There is almost always more to do than we have time to do it, so we have to choose moment to moment practically what we will do now and what will be set aside for later -- or sometimes never. 

If we're practicing, zazen for example, and we''re interrupted by something else that is important and needs doing right then (I don't know, maybe the dishwasher or sink or tub overflows or something), do we continue to sit unperturbed or do we take care of it? And if we take care of it are we procrastinating over sitting because we've been distracted -- and have thus bought a ticket to hell?

The chapter is about guarding your awareness and attention, your Awakening Mind, your mindfulness as it were, and not going off on tangents, not getting caught up in anger and dispute, or feel that something else that captures your attention can take you away from it. In other words, (I'll speculate) you are to maintain your Awakening Mind regardless of those impulses and distractions. They will happen. They are part of life, but your Awakening Mind stays with you through it all. Life beyond life.

Earlier chapters were about developing this Awakening Mind (or bodhicitta) and this one is about what to do when you have it and how to protect it from all kinds of outside influences. 

So I'm not really clear about how procrastination enters into the equation of protection and guardianship. 

I've reviewed the talk in replay, and it still doesn't quite gel. Something is missing, I'm not sure what.

So this afternoon, I brought up my questions in Enso, our periodic gathering to discuss our studies and practice. I described how I was procrastinating over my project to trim the dead branches at my place and why I was procrastinating, and I said, "You know under the circumstances, this might be Wisdom." 

And then I said that it seemed to me that Shantideva was advising how to guard your Awakening Mind from distractions and aversion and not warning against procrastination, at least not against procrastination that's wise.

Sound wasn't doing well on my Zoom (I later found out why. I'll have to fix that, but not right this minute) so conversation was difficult/impossible, but I was able to get my point across, and I think the response was interesting. First, just the images I was using of old trees, dead branches needing cutting, danger, lack of agility or skill, were having a startling effect, and I realized they were being taken as metaphor -- which of course they were. They were intentional metaphors, or analogies if you want, for why many people procrastinate. Not because they're distracted, craving something, or have an aversion to the task they're procrastinating over. They're not ready or able. Simple as that. 

The Dharma teacher agreed that there were many reasons, some of them good reasons, to procrastinate. Then he said something that startled me: "You're in Albuquerque, right? Or are you in Santa Fe?" I had to type my response on the chat form. I live essentially equidistant between Albuquerque and Santa Fe but not between them. It's a contradiction. It's complicated. "Oh, right. Well, look, we have people here at the center who might be able to help you with those trees.  They do orchard pruning all the time. Email me and we'll see what we can work out."

Wow. I certainly didn't expect that. Completely blown away as they say. I'm still kind of stunned. It was not my intention to get help with the trees from the Zen center. I'm grateful, though, for this intentional kindness, even if it doesn't happen in the end. It is the intent to help another in fulfillment of Bodhisattva vows that matters. 

And there was an example for all participants to see. It's what you do.

Eventually, I might get into how that kindness and attention to others has been a large part of my life for a very long time both flowing from me and come toward me, and how I have failed over the years, and how I keep trying, doing my best, even now when I am essentially locked away in the middle of nowhere. 

And I felt so much compassion for the other participants in this Enso gathering. The Dharma teacher's talk the previous evening had more than 100 in attendance over Zoom, and there were at least 60 at the Enso to discuss. I had heard many of their stories before, and I know a lot of them are in great emotional pain, some in physical pain, and they carry huge burdens of doubt and despair with them all the time. I heard new stories at the Enso, some not quite as painful but certainly illuminating, indeed nourishing. One read a poem that spoke to Emptiness. Others described their struggles with procrastination or making decisions of any kind. This was the first time men spoke in any numbers. Usually at Enso men are silent, as I had been during previous ones. But this time... it was different. 

This program goes into Sesshin tomorrow evening. It is bound by silence for a week. No talking, journaling, email or what have you. TeeBee off, no constant news alerts, no yakkity yakking on your phone. It's a period of intense contemplation. Delving as deep as possible into the Dharma and living the Dharma. With others but not... more contradiction. 

I've never done this type of study and practice before. But I won't be able to report on it till it is over. Interesting...