Let's Try Just Sitting

It all began as a typical friday at school. I woke up. I went to school. I went to classes, and all of a sudden, 4th period roles around. I couldn't help but feel slightly excited. After having two weeks of pure stress, I looked forward to my mentorship meeting in which I would be sitting for the first time. The Zen practice of sitting, is exactly what it sounds like. I had to will myself to fit still, and more importantly not think. How many times a day can I tell myself to stop thinking? With an incredibly busy schedule, finding time to do necessary things such as eat and sleep are hard. Know, I have the opportunity to work doing absolutely nothing into my schedule without feeling guilty about it.

After finding a spot to sit on the front lawn of my school, I took off my shoes and sat like a pretzel. Closing my eyes, i directed my attention to my breaths. I began to count each breath as they went in and out. I found that simply counting one's breath is not exactly easy. I found myself getting to about 3, when I could no longer count and returned back to one. The goal is to expel all thoughts from the mind and to me, counting was just too much to handle. During this exercise, I experienced a rather foreign feeling. Once my eyes were closed, I felt completely alone. All of this regardless of the fact that my history teach/mentor is sitting right across from me, and traffic was passing by as usual. To be alone, truly alone with oneself, as I have discovered, is actually terrifying. I actually don't think that until that point, I had ever truly been alone with myself, as cliché as that sounds. If you could imagine that the mind expands in all direction and there is absolutely nothing in that space, that is what it feels like. 

One of the goals of this exercise is to center the body and mind. While I had my legs crossed only in half lotus, and not full, I began to feel that an imbalance was looming. After sitting still for sometime, I could feel my body physically lean to one side, not at center where I was aiming to keep it. In this exercise, the mind and the body come together as one, and therefore, because I was not physically aligned, my mind had a larger margin to wander of, which is what happened. Nonetheless, being centered can only come with practice. 

After a whole twelve minutes, my little sitting session came to an end. Twelve minutes of doing nothing felt much closer to thirty. I can honestly say, that relieving the mind of all of the pressures of everyday life is an exercise that I fully intend to keep up. It might actually be the key to saving me from insanity.  

What is it About Physics?

As I mentioned in my last post, The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav is the simplistic break down of quantum physics into terms that the average person can understand. Luckily for me, in order to attempt the piecing together of the relationship between Buddhism and Physics, I need a foundation of the physics aspect also. Very early on, Zukav makes it clear that physics is not some mystical, complicated force that only "scientists" can understand, but it is an explanation of how the world around us works, even if, on a microscopic level. There is something to be said about the natural order of things, and there is a correlation between the natural order and Buddhism. Even though Buddhism is a relatively established religion, the goal which many serious Buddhist set for themselves, such as reaching Enlightenment and finally Nirvana is technically unknown to everyone that hasn't accomplished this task, and yet they are still pursued. Zukav, in trying to define  Wu Li masters, states, ". . . we will use the word 'physicists' from now on to mean those physicists who are also scientists, that is, those physicists (people) who are not confined by the 'known'" (17). Therefore, like Buddhist, Physicists are also out to understand that which is beyond ordinary knowledge.

Zukav also attempts to briefly explain the core of this book stating that, "This book is about physics. Therefore, all it contains is a description. It cannot contain the experience itself" (17).
Like Buddhism, physics can be described, but until the person goes out of their way to experience physics or Buddhism first hand, there is no way to truly know the essence of each. There is a reason why Buddhism is a practice. It is something which requires action, and without action, one can not hope to achieve relief from suffering. I think this is one of the reasons why sitting would be a good idea. I could read about sitting and study sitting, but I will not be able to experience the relief first hand otherwise.