This blog hosts articles contributed by members of the Chicago Zen Center. For news about events at the Center and in Chicago, please visit our Un-Learning
by Sean Poust
College is, without a doubt, the most distracting place that I have ever lived. Dormitory life is not conducive to focus on homework, let alone to Zen practice. A plethora of 18-23 year olds, all free for the first time, creates a number of interesting activities and distractions. This is not limited to little distractions like videogames, TV, Instant Messenger and sleep, but also big ones like drugs, alcohol and sex.
Maintaining a Zen practice in this has certainly not been easy. However, difficult things are often the most rewarding. As I have heard many times from various Zen adepts, unless we practice in an environment where there are distractions, we will never learn to throw these distractions out, and as such, we will never grow. Further, without a community to support Zen practice, like the Chicago Zen Center, getting lost and unmotivated is far easier.
I have found community in some odd places however. I have attended the Prairie Zen Center a few times here, but have not found it to be a particular place of spirituality. What I did find there though is my flute teacher: I met her at the first sitting I went to and started to take lessons soon after. Fitting in my flute amongst all the other demands on my time has certainly been difficult, but also very rewarding.
My flute studies began when I was in 6th grade, playing in my school’s band and taking private lessons at the same time. I took lessons on and off until the 9th grade when I finally quit. For some reason, as I came to college, I felt moved to begin to practice again. First, I started to teach myself and eventually I became interested in finding a teacher.
Having a teacher made me realize how remarkably badly I played the flute. I believed that my previous experience with the flute would make me a better flautist. This ended up giving me was an inflated ego and a host of bad habits. Instead of breathing in a regulated, calm fashion, I would take gasps of air and plow along. This makes my playing “music” not only unpleasant for me, but also for the person listening as they hear this very loud and jarring intake of air. Further, instead of counting out rhythms as they should be done and making sure that I had it right, I would just play my rhythm, which often disagreed with what was actually on the paper.
Through the course of my playing, I realized I was making playing the flute a cerebral activity, when in actuality, it needed to come from the heart and the body. I needed to approach the practice of the flute without my ideas of how good I was or what level I should be at. I just needed to work at it, deliberately, realistically and of course, practice often.
I have found that this greatly parallels my practice of Zen in college. I came in with all these ideas of how good I was, where I should be in my practice, and what I should be doing. However, there is no denying that I am in college now and my life must change to reflect this. There are now a number of demands on my time that didn’t exist before and the whole environment surrounding me has changed. Fitting in practice and focusing will be more difficult. Using the “lessons” about Zen that I “learned” in high school (which were hindering me anyway) will not serve me. Like with my flute, I need to approach practice without the cerebral and simply work at it.
We are all stuck in something; to be human is to be stuck. I have been stuck in this intellectual evaluation of how to approach the flute and Zen. I simply needed to approach these things without the ideas of how to approach them; I needed to just work at them. Learning is part of the gift of having an intellect, but ultimately these lessons are limited—true mind comes from the ability to see when these habits have become destructive and then to overcome them.
I was talking to my dad during my Winter Break about college. I told him that I was having trouble balancing all the demands on my time: homework, extra-curriculars, friends and sleep. He responded, “Don’t worry, the one thing that you can be sure of is that you’ll never get it right.” This could be seen as depressing, but I see it differently. In a spiritual life and with the flute there is always change and adaptation, learning new lessons and getting rid of old ones. We must constantly work to address our lives from where we need to be, not from were we want or think we should be.
College is, without a doubt, the most distracting place that I have ever lived. Dormitory life is not conducive to focus on homework, let alone to Zen practice. A plethora of 18-23 year olds, all free for the first time, creates a number of interesting activities and distractions. This is not limited to little distractions like videogames, TV, Instant Messenger and sleep, but also big ones like drugs, alcohol and sex.
Maintaining a Zen practice in this has certainly not been easy. However, difficult things are often the most rewarding. As I have heard many times from various Zen adepts, unless we practice in an environment where there are distractions, we will never learn to throw these distractions out, and as such, we will never grow. Further, without a community to support Zen practice, like the Chicago Zen Center, getting lost and unmotivated is far easier.
I have found community in some odd places however. I have attended the Prairie Zen Center a few times here, but have not found it to be a particular place of spirituality. What I did find there though is my flute teacher: I met her at the first sitting I went to and started to take lessons soon after. Fitting in my flute amongst all the other demands on my time has certainly been difficult, but also very rewarding.
My flute studies began when I was in 6th grade, playing in my school’s band and taking private lessons at the same time. I took lessons on and off until the 9th grade when I finally quit. For some reason, as I came to college, I felt moved to begin to practice again. First, I started to teach myself and eventually I became interested in finding a teacher.
Having a teacher made me realize how remarkably badly I played the flute. I believed that my previous experience with the flute would make me a better flautist. This ended up giving me was an inflated ego and a host of bad habits. Instead of breathing in a regulated, calm fashion, I would take gasps of air and plow along. This makes my playing “music” not only unpleasant for me, but also for the person listening as they hear this very loud and jarring intake of air. Further, instead of counting out rhythms as they should be done and making sure that I had it right, I would just play my rhythm, which often disagreed with what was actually on the paper.
Through the course of my playing, I realized I was making playing the flute a cerebral activity, when in actuality, it needed to come from the heart and the body. I needed to approach the practice of the flute without my ideas of how good I was or what level I should be at. I just needed to work at it, deliberately, realistically and of course, practice often.
I have found that this greatly parallels my practice of Zen in college. I came in with all these ideas of how good I was, where I should be in my practice, and what I should be doing. However, there is no denying that I am in college now and my life must change to reflect this. There are now a number of demands on my time that didn’t exist before and the whole environment surrounding me has changed. Fitting in practice and focusing will be more difficult. Using the “lessons” about Zen that I “learned” in high school (which were hindering me anyway) will not serve me. Like with my flute, I need to approach practice without the cerebral and simply work at it.
We are all stuck in something; to be human is to be stuck. I have been stuck in this intellectual evaluation of how to approach the flute and Zen. I simply needed to approach these things without the ideas of how to approach them; I needed to just work at them. Learning is part of the gift of having an intellect, but ultimately these lessons are limited—true mind comes from the ability to see when these habits have become destructive and then to overcome them.
I was talking to my dad during my Winter Break about college. I told him that I was having trouble balancing all the demands on my time: homework, extra-curriculars, friends and sleep. He responded, “Don’t worry, the one thing that you can be sure of is that you’ll never get it right.” This could be seen as depressing, but I see it differently. In a spiritual life and with the flute there is always change and adaptation, learning new lessons and getting rid of old ones. We must constantly work to address our lives from where we need to be, not from were we want or think we should be.
