Don't Eat Your Spinach
Now, if the practice is so good for us, why is it so difficult to maintain a steady practice? It may be that the notion that practice is "good for us" is the very impediment we all know how we can resist what is good for us at the table, at the gym, and on the Internet. This mechanical notion of practice, "If I practice, then I will be (fill in the blank)," leads to discouragement because it is not true that practice inevitably leads to happiness or anything that we can imagine. Our lives, like the ocean, constantly change, and we will naturally face great storms and dreary lulls.
How, then, to put our minds in a space where practice is always there, whether
our lives are tumultuous or we are in the doldrums? It requires a completely
radical view of practice. Practice is not something we do; it is something we
are. We are not separate from our practice, and so no matter what, our practice
is present. An ocean swimmer is loose and flows with the current and moves
through the tide. When tossed upside down in the surf, unable to discern which
way is up and which way is down, the natural swimmer just let's go, breathing
out, and follows the bubbles to the surface.
Pat Enkyo O'Hara Roshi, from "Like a Dragon in Water," Tricycle, Summer 2002
