Dear Sangha, Thank You for Making me Less of an A**

If it hadn’t been for my Sangha, I am pretty sure I would have given up meditation. But being around other dedicated practitioners, my compassionate teacher, and new people who were just beginning on the path, got me back on the cushion “full time.” I am thankful for them.

By Tyson Davis

So I have been meditating almost daily for seven years, but I have a dirty little secret.

Okay, I have several dirty little secrets, but only one that I am prepared to share with you readers. I don’t like to meditate. Yes, you read that right. I really don’t like to. I have to talk myself into it most days and when I do finally force myself on the pillow I am ready to get up almost immediately.

This wasn’t always the case.

When I first started seven years ago by going to a beginners’ Zen retreat I was a little scared, but excited. I had been an intellectual Zen student for over 15 years. I had read many wonderful books about Buddhism in general and Zen in particular. I knew it was right for me. But I only read and rarely sat my ass on a cushion. So I was excited to find out that there was a Zen group in my area.

I couldn’t wait to do the actual practice. I learned very little at the retreat (by design—those damn enigmatic Zen teachers, ya know?). But they did put me on a zafu and zabuton and force me to sit still for 15-30 minutes at a time for half a day. It flew by. I’m an introvert, so what better way to spend time with people than having them sit next to me and not be allowed to say anything to me? Plus, it was startling to see the tangled mess that was my mind. I was hooked.

After fast and furious six months of meditating once or twice daily I started to notice results. Now in Zen, we aren’t supposed to have a goal with meditation and any benefits you see because of meditation shouldn’t be discussed. They are purely incidental to the BIG AWAKENING. And we definitely can’t talk about that! But dammit, I did have results. I actually noticed things going on around me. I was actually listening to people instead of just hearing them. I was able to see that I was causing suffering in others and was able to at least cut that down some.

All great right? Other things happened too over the first couple of years. And I enjoyed being on the cushion. But sometime, somehow, it started to change.

After a few years it wasn’t so fun anymore. I started making excuses about why I couldn’t sit that day. All of the sudden I was too busy. Or didn’t feel good. Or my knee hurt too bad from trying to twist myself into the pretzel full lotus position. I had any number of excuses to not sit and my practice went first to almost daily to a couple of times a week to whenever I felt like it. And I didn’t feel like it most of the time.

But throughout this time I kept going to my weekly Sangha meetings. I started enjoying those more and more. I began to interact with the other members even though, for me, it was painful to do. If it hadn’t been for my Sangha, I am pretty sure I would have given up meditation. But being around other dedicated practitioners, my compassionate teacher, and new people who were just beginning on the path, got me back on the cushion “full time.” I am thankful for them.

Now back to my dirty little secret.

Even though I’m meditating once or twice a day almost daily, I don’t enjoy it. It’s still a burden for me most days. But when I have those days where I really, really, really don’t want to do it, I think about how I’m not as big of an asshole because of it and how much better I can be if I continue to do it.

And I think of my Sangha.

The great group of people that come help me sit on Sundays. Some I’ve known for years. Some I see one time and they never come back. But they all have courage and it forces me to be courageous each time I stare down at the cushion before I sit. My Sangha is my motivation.

So if you see any of my Sangha members, thank them for helping me to not be as big of an asshole as I used to be.

Tyson Davis is not a Zen Teacher. In fact, his main practice is “don’t know.” So don’t take anything he writes as the proverbial gospel (or sutra as the case may be). He does think he is something of a Zen unicorn though, because he is not a Liberal/Progressive Democrat Buddhist, and he rolls his eyes when American Buddhist teachers and bloggers constantly inject politics into their religion. Because of that he started a blog, Don’t Know Zen. There he does what some would call tilting at windmills but he calls bringing American Buddhism back to the Middle Way.