metonymy4u

For me koan practice is about being aware of my response to the wordy events of my life. It is about developing a different relationship to the sentences that fill our world. Sentences like, “wouldn’t a burger and fries be great right now?” or “do you really want a president who is soft on crime?” The problem, I think, is that we so often confuse activity with action. And sentences like these often bully us into error. So learning to sit with a question like “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” or “what is the one of one?” helps me re-focus my attention on experience as it is in this moment. Investigation is redirected—to seek an appropriate action, given the nature of the way things are, and not the way they “should” be. Control is released, in favor of a helpful response. So often we believe acceptance and action are incompatible. That acceptance is synonymous with passivity. In fact, I think that acceptance is the very action of effort.