Being Without the Rehearsed Self

The invitation of Zen... We could respond to the present moment as It actually Is, not as the mind expected it to be, and not as the fabricated version thinking mind is trying to self-will into being.

In practical terms, that could mean meeting the moment without our presets and defaults... without our habits... without the well-practiced personalisms... without the rehearsed version of ourselves we've been carrying around like luggage on our back.

That said, we can be honest about what still happens. The familiar defaults and patterns will still come up reflexively: the prepared responses, the comebacks we keep handy, the opinions we formed before anyone even spoke, because the mind has already figured it out and reached a verdict. That isn't failure. That's just habit doing what habit energy does. We aren't trying to stop them from arising. We're noticing... ahhh, there you are. No thank you. Not this, not right now.

The practice is being aware of them as they arrive, and not automatically saying them like habit's meat puppet. Not following them out the door as a reaction or a tendency.

In that small gap between the old line showing up and us not acting on it, something new has room to appear. We can't force freshness. We can't command ourselves to be new. Spontaneity isn't something we make. It's what's left when the rehearsal stops. It was never missing, only crowded out.

It takes time to move out of the gated community of self. We've been building it for a long time. But, but, but... we can stop filling every space with the rehearsed version. And when we do, newness is already here. No waiting.

一 May We Discover Rather Than Re-play