Two Steps Forward, One Step Backward

Another night gives way to another day. From one perspective, the sun and moon chase each other across the sky. From another, the world spins. Either way: life is a blur - and I daresay it isn’t just speed that makes it this way.

Perspectives are easy to get stuck within; a home, a culture, a certain way of being or seeing. Life is so ridiculously intimate that our felt experience is like a book that has been smushed right up against our face: important, full of good stuff, but so so close that it’s hard to see clearly.

You smell the paper. You feel the edge of the page tickling your nose. You even make out a word or two - a declarative the, a run-on and, something in italics - but the sentence? The plot? Not a chance.

Every so often, something pulls us back a few inches. Suddenly there are margins. Whole paragraphs. A page number, even.

Zooming out offers a bit of clarity and context as to what exactly we’re nose deep in otherwise. Not that we can hold it at arm’s length forever. Arms get tired. And I’m not sure we’d want to; some of the best stuff only shows up in the intimacy of the moment - right there, close enough to smell.

But: a step back can be useful.

The reality of my day-to-day is nose-to-nose with tech, connectivity, and noise - so much so that it can be hard to hear myself think. The plot is my inbox and calendar, and to-do lists for different clients and projects are scattered across three separate desks in my office - somehow, touch wood, none get missed.

But in the face of this modern momentum, what can get missed in my little life in this little apartment is spaciousness - at least, without a little bit of effort.

I have hacks, like using devices that are dedicated to single tasks: a proper camera instead of my iPhone, a Kobo e-reader instead of my iPhone, a pen and paper for writing instead of my iPhone.

I have rituals, forcing me to slow down: brewing a pot of tea, walking for my commutes, a rule against diving into my inbox first thing in the morning.

And I have interventions, momentary retreats to stare at the horizon/nature/wall.

Sometimes, with just enough time and luck, these can yield the spaciousness I’m missing. And with that space I can reorient - who/why/when am I? And from that space, I can dive back into the blur holding on to its spirit.

I have not yet found a way to stop this oscillation. In fact, I’m starting to wonder if the oscillation is a feature rather than a bug.

Once upon a time, one of my meditation teachers remarked that there are two ways that people can stumble into meditative mindsets without training: spending a lot of time in nature or hallucinogenic drugs. Me? I came in by the nature path.

In my younger years, I spent a LOT of time freezing my butt off in a little aluminum boat with my dad. We would push out in the fog of dawn, forsaking our own breakfast in the hope that the fish were eager for theirs. Bobbing on the water, sitting in silence, I learned to stare at everything and nothing at the same time, waiting for a fish to grant my wish and nibble the other end of my line. Hour after hour, day after day…when you’re that bored for that long and without distraction, it forces a certain kind of mind.

Staring at a wall in Zen meditation is not so different, but nature has always been my default for this. Some of the hacks/rituals/interventions above are my ongoing attempt to cultivate this on a more daily level. The step back needn’t be away from the book, but rather from our frantic skimming of it.

Predictably, it turns out that I’m far from being the first human to wrestle with perspective-taking.

Dusting off my copy of Zen master Dogen’s Fukanzazengi, I remember something that might be related in his instructions on meditation:

You should therefore cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate your self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest. If you want to attain suchness you should practice suchness without delay.

He wrote this in 1227, a few years before the first iPhone.

That backward step is something you can feel on the cushion.

We sit down with the mind, taking a moment to watch its thoughts. At first, the thoughts feel solid. They pull us into their storylines until we realize we’re neck deep in solving the world’s problems with an urgent main-character energy. We try again - resetting the posture, the intention, the soft awareness. As we do this, over and over again, we can begin to feel the fleeting nature of thoughts - once so convincing - arising and passing, going one direction when we feed them and an entirely different one when we soften.

It’s not so different from freezing my butt off fishing. Each is a backward step that helps us slow down and experience the world with a little more intimacy and wakefulness. Each, medicine for the manic pace of the world. Each, activism against the capitalist mantra of more more more. Stepping back, I can keep diving in.

Another day gives way to another night.

Onwards and forwards,
David