Kobun Otogawa

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I’ve been sitting [zazen] for a few weeks now. In the morning and before sleep. I was recently telling a friend that there are waves of wanting to do anything else—even running into the other room, lighting a cigarette, and putting it out on my arm. Anything that isn’t sitting. But those waves often fade as quickly as they come. Then, for a few seconds, there’s something that approaches nothing. Then the deep, visceral need to stand up and tear all the skin off my body. Then thinking. Then, for a few more seconds, something close to nothing. All of it intertwined with the constant reminder to sit up straight—the sudden remembering of which becomes something like a light at the end of a tunnel. A very short, fifteen second tunnel.

“Sitting brings us back to actually who and where we are. This can be very painful. Self-acceptance is the hardest thing to do.

This entire quotation really explains, to me, the reason behind that urge to do anything else, no matter how destructive and stupid it may be. But that urge has also illustrated the thinking process that usually goes unnoticed in my day-to-day life.