I’ve struggled for years trying to maintain a consistent zazen practice, and I’m not sure whether my resistance to it is a matter of laziness and ego assertion or simply that I really don’t buy it on some level. I mean, on the one hand, they all say “If you meditate in order to achieve something, then you’re not really meditating.” But then again, in Wilber’s system, meditation is THE thing to do if you want to evolve, be enlightened, transcend death, and save the freaking world. How the hell can you Wilberites be meditating without any intention to “do” something or “get somewhere,” given that kind of build up? I don’t know, these are just things I struggle with sometimes. Also, what IS meditation, really? If one is “not really meditating” when one is out to better oneself, then that cuts out about ninety percent of my practice right there. And if the heart of the meditative process is simply being present, then there’s a million and one activities that can bring about that experience, and it is pure arrogance to assume that people posturing in any particular way are really “doing it,” while someone else who say, goes to the gym every day, is “just working out.” The proof is in the pudding I guess, and only you can know for sure whether you’re growing or dying.
There is a way to live that opens me up and a way that shuts me down. For me, the whole process comes down to this: When I’m open (whether through luck, effort or grace), and I have the guts and faith needed to allow whatever form of self-expression that arises to unfold, then I open up more and feel more alive and connected. When I choose, consciously or unconsciously, to inhibit this movement in favor of a habitual, conditioned response, I feel more and more cut off, and I contract again back into an unfulfilling daze. I think there’s a fundamental attitude that is a prerequisite for spiritual growth. It’s simply maddening to try to cultivate such an attitude, since the desire to do so presupposes a contrary attitude. Deep down I know I can assume the appropriate attitude any time I want to, it’s just that I don’t always want it, because living from such a place leads me beyond the status quo, and I just don’t want to deal with that sometimes.