Urgency

With palms together


Good Morning Everyone,



This morning we will sit zazen in the park at Frontier and Roadrunner here in Las Cruces, NM. I am looking forward to this practice, although this immediate moment is actually my practice. I am drawn to my online chess games and struggle to let them sit idle while I stare at the wall…or the grass. My rating has taken a serious hit lately. I feel a strong urge to play and play and play some more! Dealing with such matters is what Zen is all about.



We often feel compelled. We often struggle with this urge or that. It is not the aim of the urge that is so much the matter, but the felt urgency itself. The aims come and go, but just below the surface urgency remains. For some it is a personality issue, for others it can be a sign of addiction, and still others (most, I think) it is a culturally induced response to fight or flight. There is a reason we say, “We are like sitting ducks!” Birds on a wire get shot! Urgency, hypervigilance, the need to do something about something: these go back a very long way in our gene pool.



Zen practice is about noticing and releasing. I notice my need and release myself from its bondage. I do this through the practice or returning to the present moment fused with a commitment to just sit.



By just sitting we face the power of urgency and defeat it. In the process, we gain mastery while paradoxically letting mastery go. It’s like those straw finger puzzles: the more we pull, the tighter they get. Want freedom? Relax and let go.



Be well.