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One of the dif­fi­cult things about Bud­dhism is its some­what wacky and “hard to get your head around” con­cepts. And the rid­dles and jokes, all designed to shift your perception.

There are a ton of ways to describe what life can look like from a Zen per­spec­tive. One way is this:

Drop Body, Drop Mind, Drop Self

I’m going to play briefly with the 3 things, but let me cut to the chase. The drop­ping part is not equal to “not hav­ing.” It is equal to: “do not cling to.”

Drop Body

Well, West­ern­ers are addicted to this one. Most New Agers are on a tear to get to the “spir­i­tual stuff.” From a Body­work per­spec­tive, they exist from the heart up.

Another descrip­tion is, “not grounded.”

I often think of the sto­ries of Pope Paul wear­ing a hair shirt as a good descrip­tion of some­one try­ing to drop the body. This goes back to the odd monas­tic idea that bod­ies are to be sub­ju­gated, restricted, and ulti­mately “transcended.”

It also fits with the idea that “good feel­ings” are OK, and “bad” feel­ings are to be sup­pressed or got­ten past, or ignored. And it’s amaz­ing what gets lumped into unac­cept­able feelings!

The hair shirt stuff is often aimed at sex­ual feel­ings, of course. For those caught in “other-worldly” stuff, sex­u­al­ity is entirely too earthy. Much bet­ter to repress all that stuff.

Or, take meditation.

I get all kinds of com­plaints about how painful “sit­ting” is. And I even remem­ber the good old days when I hated sit­ting. My feet would ache or fall asleep, and my back would hurt, and I’d get distracted.

Here’s how “drop­ping the body” really works.

We drop our attach­ment to judge­ments about our bod­ies. In other words, what goes on in our bod­ies is what is going on in our bod­ies — that’s it.

In each case, then, “drop­ping” means let­ting go of evaluation.

Now, I know. We’ve been con­di­tioned to judge. This hurts, that feels good. (And isn’t odd that many good lit­tle Puri­tans also judge plea­sur­able feel­ings to be “off limits?”)

I was sit­ting with Dar­bella this morn­ing, for a nice, New Year’s 25 minute sit (not really all that long, actu­ally.) I nor­mally sit kneel­ing, and occa­sion­ally switch to Burmese. Last week, my last sit was Burmese because one of my feet kept cramp­ing in kneel­ing posi­tion. Today, I could “sit kneel­ing” again.

What I noticed today was that my lower back is tight and sore, and I was aware of it through­out the sit. Just like I noticed the foot cramp last week.

It all “just is.” I sat with the back pain, and after a few min­utes, I didn’t notice it. I’ve done the same with bro­ken ribs and sprained ankles dur­ing my more active mar­tial arts days. Stuff hurts, but it’s not bad or good. It’s just what is. Until it isn’t.

In Body­work, I’m end­lessly invit­ing clients to “have their feel­ings.” This means going with the flow — express­ing what­ever comes up. If sad, cry. If angry, shout. If turned on, wiggle.

Drop Mind

Here is what med­i­ta­tion is NOT. Med­i­ta­tion is not an empty mind! There is no such thing as an empty mind.

Zen story (also in my book, Half Asleep in the Bud­dha Hall)
Stu­dent: My mind is empty!
Teacher: Now, empty your mind of emptiness!

Mind thinks. All the time, even when we are asleep.

Drop­ping Mind does not mean elim­i­nat­ing think­ing. It means “do not grasp onto the Mind’s processes.”

Not Grasp­ing is mov­ing past labelling.

A thought emerges. Label­ing is: “thought.” Or, “think­ing.” Or, “bored, tired, angry, happy, check­ing out the woman across the Zendo.” What­ever. So far, so good.

Most, then, begin story-telling. Wool gath­er­ing. Or judg­ing —

“I’m not sup­posed to be think­ing! I’m a lousy student!’

Drop­ping Mind is all about sim­ply watch­ing Mind do it’s thing.

A friend in Ger­many described it perfectly:

“Learn­ing to detach. To stop telling sto­ries but rather watch­ing what really goes on. Let­ting things develop instead of push­ing my way through.”

Most peo­ple go into their heads and come up with sto­ries about what’s going on, and then spend their time try­ing to get oth­ers to go along with their sto­ries. “I’ve got to fix this!”

Mostly, noth­ing needs fixing.

Mostly, what’s needed is a com­mit­ment to accept “what is,” and then to set a course of action — for your­self. With­out adding the judge­ment layer.

For exam­ple, take poverty. Most peo­ple think about it, make them­selves feel bad, then gripe about it and try to get oth­ers to join them in the gripe.

Wise souls take action. They use less, give more, act. Not a mind process, but a doing.

Drop Self

Lastly, here’s a big one for freak­ing out. “What, you mean I don’t exist? What are you, nuts?”

Well, one part of this is rec­og­niz­ing another big Bud­dhist con­cept — imper­ma­nence, tied to com­pound things.

There is noth­ing in the uni­verse that is not made up of com­po­nents. So, for exam­ple, you are not your hand, although you have one or two. Imper­ma­nence reminds us that we are con­stantly chang­ing. I am no longer who I was when I sat down to type this, let alone the cute kid I was grow­ing up in Buf­falo in the 50s.

I’m who I am right now, and that is end­lessly changing.

Now, sure, I’m male and blue-eyed, and those things seem fixed. But really, my male-ness has been in flux ince I was born, and my eyes, while still blue, are entirely dif­fer­ent eyes.

Now, we can grasp to our iden­ti­ties in sev­eral ways.

The most benign is the prac­ti­cal use of self. I know my name, my birth­date,
(if you’ve read this far, yes­ter­day, Jan­u­ary 3, was my 59^th birth­day — wish me a happy birth­day!) where I was born, my height, weight, etc. This data helps me to get a driver’s licence. (OOPS! Crap! I was sup­posed to renew mine — last week!)

Beyond those kinds of data, the rest of “me” is pretty sub­jec­tive, and not par­tic­u­larly worth cling­ing to.

How I am and who I am is really about who I choose to be, right now. Right now, I’m a writer, writ­ing. A moment ago, I was a cook, cook­ing. My iden­tity is fluid, and has much to do with how I choose to be in the world.

So, Drop­ping Body, Mind, and Self is all about non-grasping our thoughts about anything.

Spend some time think­ing about things that you cling to. Are you a vic­tim? Gullible? Blam­ing? Are you young, mid­dle aged, old?

Or are you just who you are, right now, despite what you think?

Hmm.

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Make Con­tact!

So, how does this week’s arti­cle sit with you? What ques­tions do you have? Go to the top of this arti­cle, click on the title, and leave a com­ment or question!

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Work­shops, Retreats!

Dar­bella and I can help you to find a new, vibrant, rich path. We offer day-long and week­end events —just you and us—and we will work with you, to be the change you want to see.

Read about it here:

Day-long Inten­sives
Week­end Residentials

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Related posts:

1. Drop­ping the Excuses
2. Drop­ping Arrogance
3. Unbind­ing
4. Drop­ping Judge­ment, Accept­ing Consequences
5. The Straight-Jacket of Delusion

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Tagged with: awareness • blaming • Bodywork • Buddha • Buddhism • Buddhist

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