Who is peeking out the window?

Submit yourself to a daily practice
Doing that is like a ring on a door
Keep knocking and eventually
Joy will peek out the window
to see who's there - Rumi

My mother was a very depressed, rather cold person and growing up in my household was not very much fun. Mostly my siblings and I either fought or drowned ourselves in books. I was one of the few children in our small town who actually completed the library reading program in the summers. Everyone else was playing baseball, going on picnics, swimming or playing with friends. My concept of play was somewhat skewed to say the least. I don't remember ever playing and having fun. So when I read this quote from Rumi the first time I was somewhat taken aback. Joy? I didn't get it. I thought spiritual practice had to be a serious practice, full of angst. Then I started zen meditation. The first time I walked into the dharma room there were all these people, eyes downcast, faces drooping, silent statues and boy did it look serious! And I thought, "OK, this is really for me!!" Serious practice - no laughing, no talking, no joy, just facing the floors and whatever came up in your mind. My mother probably would have loved it! Our temple rules say that zen meditation is the great work of life and death. How much more serious can it get than that?

And yet there are so many zen stories of masters, who after their enlightenment, are infused with - (dare I say it?) - deep, abiding joy - an aliveness that comes with understanding our true nature and the nature of each and every thing. Where does this joy come from? It comes from our submission to a daily meditation practice. It is an outgrowth of the work we do on our cushion - everyday facing ourselves and our delusions over and over and over until we are so tired and confused and frustrated and boiling over until one day we look into the sky and all our questions are answered without reservation. One ancient zen master put it like this:

"Arouse your entire body with its three hundred and sixty bones and joints and its eighty four thousand pores of the skin; summon up a spirit of great doubt and concentrate on this word "Mu". Carry it continuously day and night. Do not form a conception of vacancy or a conception of "has" or "has not". It will be just as if you swallow a red-hot ball, which you cannot spit out even if you try. All the illusory ideas and delusive thoughts accumulated up to the present will be exterminated, and when the time comes, internal and external will be spontaneously united. You will know this, but yourself only, like a dumb man who has had a dream. Then all of a sudden an explosive conversion will occur, and you will astonish the heavens and shake the earth. It will be as if you snatch away the great sword of the valiant General Kwan and hold it in your hand. When you meet the Buddha, you kill him; when you meet the patriarchs, you kill them. On the brink of life and death, you command perfect freedom; among the sixfold worlds and four modes of existence, you enjoy a samadhi of FROLIC AND PLAY."

'General Kwan's sword was said to be seven feet long - a very powerful sword indeed. And with this sword on your cushion you cut off all thinking, all concepts - even the concept of self, of right or wrong, of Buddha, of God, spiritual practice,...everything gets cut down. And what is left when this work is done? After all the anguish? After all the self-pity? After all the tears and self-doubts? After all the fatigue? Joy peeks it head out the window to see who's there.

I hope you are all doing well and that you are finding joy and happiness in your everyday practice.