In this newsletter, I have mostly discussed my filmmaking and jiu jitsu practices. The articles have had a confessional undertone and have indeed been cathartic for me; I have also derived great joy from the feedback and reflections that you (the readers) have shared so far. An equally important realization of the Path for me is daily “sitting” or meditation, which I have discussed in passing. My perspective on creativity and martial arts is, as I indicated in an earlier article, profoundly influenced by my practice of zazen. (Zazen is what we call meditation in the Zen tradition.)
It is hard to articulate how sitting and staring at a wall for 30 minutes a day shifts your perspective, but there is certainly a shift. Previously, I drew an analogy between meditation and jiu jitsu, arguing that both practices demand total focus. That sounds like a truism. Speaking in more esoteric terms, we may say that jiu jitsu and zazen demand that you become one with your experience.
Yes, that phrasing may sound overly woo-woo or psychedelic. However, it is not hard to understand if you have practiced grappling (jiu jitsu, judo, wrestling) or any combat sport. To quote my earlier article: “I like to think of grappling as meditation in motion; for me, meditation is like grappling in stillness. Just trying to maintain awareness of what is in front of you, including all sensory inputs. (That awareness becomes inevitable when you have a 230-pound man trying to choke you out.)”
In zazen or sitting practice, no one is trying to choke you out or put your arms and legs in compromised positions (although your legs and especially your knees will start to feel compromised if you sit in the meditation posture long enough). During zazen, you simply sit on a cushion in a presumably quiet room and stare at the wall.
Your only “objective” is to stay present with the immediate experience of what is happening. Whether that be the rumble of a garbage truck, a neighbor blasting the Red Hot Chili Peppers, or a person on the sidewalk shouting incessantly for 15 minutes. (Perhaps you can tell that I practiced zazen in Los Angeles.) In the midst of that chaos—or calmness—your breath comes and goes, as do your thoughts.
Inevitably, your mind hops onto a train of thoughts, images, or memories, and you may ride that train for several minutes before realizing that you are no longer in the present. You might be reconstructing past memories or tooling around with fantasies about the future; Richard Collins—scholar, author, and my teacher at the New Orleans Zen Temple—shrewdly likened this process to a mental game of Minecraft.
Eventually, you will realize that you have been playing Minecraft in your head, which is fine because that is how our minds usually work. Planning, building, strategizing. The point of meditation is not to shut that process off. As far as I understand it, the point is to realize or observe what is truly going on in your mind and body. (Your body can teach you a lot about the state of your life if you listen to it, but we often don’t.)
Through mind-body awareness, you will naturally return to your breathing, posture, and sensory input. (“Come back to your senses,” I like to tell myself.) Sooner or later, your phone timer will go off—or someone will ring a bell if you are sitting in a dojo—signaling the end of the meditation session.
Fundamentally, you have not gained anything by sitting on a cushion and staring at a wall for 30 minutes. To think that you are going to gain anything from that practice is misguided. And yet, something has shifted in that timeframe. You will then go about your day a little more curious, a little more open to your experiences—including random encounters, bullshit at work, and the slow grind of traffic (which probably consumed around 10-15% of my waking hours as an Angeleno).
Full disclosure: Sometimes I start playing the mental game of Minecraft even while doing live rounds in jiu jitsu, and even in intense competition-style training. I am sure it happens to the best of us. I might spend a few minutes thinking about something that irritated me earlier in the day, or something that I need to do at work tomorrow. This distraction has sometimes crept in while I was rolling (or sparring) with skilled black belts, who can give me more than enough trouble when I am fully focused.
Soon enough, in the grip of my distraction, my opponent ushers me into a pin or submission hold. As I am being choked or my arm is being hyperextended, I think, “Oh, crap.” Usually, the “oh, crap” moment happens while I am stuck in a pin.
Anyway, I have been meditating for a long time and doing jiu jitsu and other grappling arts for a long time. Sometimes, in grappling at least, I feel like an “advanced” practitioner. In meditation, I sure as hell never feel that way, even though my posture and focus have steadily improved over the years—particularly in recent months after I recommitted to practicing every week with a group in a Zen dojo.
Generally, I still feel like a beginner when I do meditation. And I often still feel that way in jiu jitsu, despite my rank (brown belt), which denotes many years of commitment and study. To this day, I am trying to constantly learn and relearn jiu jitsu with a beginner’s mindset in order to not only be a better practitioner but also a better teacher and mentor to new students of the art.
We return again to the Zen concept of beginner’s mind. Martial arts, meditation, and creativity may seem like distinct pursuits, but they are all realizations of the Path—which require unwavering curiosity and commitment. Beginner’s mind.
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NOTE: It slipped my mind that this article would go out on Mother’s Day. But of course, I love my mom. Happy Mother’s Day to all moms out there!