click here<\/a>) \u2013 by raising the desire for annihilation:<\/span><\/p>\nI\u2019m going through one of my cyclical periods where zazen is\u2026 unsatisfying\u2026 even a bit turbulent: the \u2018old black dogs\u2019 from the past are growling at each other a bit down there\/up here and I get that grating frustration that comes with the uncertainty that \u2018I\u2019m not doing it right\u2019 or that \u2018I could do it better\u2019\u2026 I found myself in the back garden tonight having my \u2018occasional cigarette,\u2019 and I stood looking up at the cloudy night sky. I closed my eyes and said to myself, \u2018Take me away.\u2019 I just stood there and let that desire go and the night spread\u2026 a sort of resolution.\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\nThis has been an important issue in my own practice too. Seems to me that there is a subtle difference between Way Mind aspiration to drop the whole works and the desire for annihilation. The desire for annihilation arises from our self-hatred, it seems to me, while Way Mind blooms from compassion \u2013 may I become a Buddha to carry all beings across.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nAnd there is a distinct body difference. Way-Mind-dropping-it-all is relaxed and warm, even passionate. Desire for annihilation is tight and cool or even cold, craving escape and especially common among transcendent types.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nBuddha addressed this (although I can\u2019t think of a Dogen passage that does \u2013 perhaps suggesting mental frailty on my part or that in his cultural milieu desire for annihilation wasn\u2019t much of a problem or recognized) saying,\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nOne who is liberated abandons craving for being without relishing non-being.<\/span><\/span><\/i><\/p>\nNicely put, no? Liberation is neither this nor that \u2013 now where have you heard that before?!\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nAlso, the thirst for non-being is listed as one of the views that keeps us fettered to swirling in our heads and is just the flip side of the view of a permanent self.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nOur practice is to let go of it all, again and again. The view that we\u2019re not doing it right as well as the view that we\u2019re doing it right. The desire for being (and concomitant fear of annihilation) and the desire for non-being (and the concomitant hardening of the categories).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
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