Seeing What's There

         There is a plan, and then there is the execution. Are they the same? Often not. After work, I go to the print store to see if I can scan pages from a Buddhist text to share with participants in the study group. I ask the clerk for a copy card, and she softly asks me a series of questions: how many pages I will scan, what other things I will do with the computer. She charges me $3.60 for the whole thing, and I have ten minutes to do my scanning. The scanner takes two out of those ten minutes to warm up. And when the first pages of the scanned document come up, they reveal a big black crease, almost like a black hole or an exploding fountain of ink in the center of the scanned page. It is like a modern, digitalized Rorscharch test. So I try again: only this time, I press down hard on the book, in the hopes that the pages I scan will surmount the heavy crease inside the book and show all the words. Surely, I reflect, there must be a trick to this… as I imagine a muscular arm crushing the book’s crease until all the pages clearly show through.

            My ten minutes are up, and not even two pages have been successfully scanned. The computer locks out. I have the option to go back to the clerk and refill my card, but I decide against it. I walk out of the store. I imagine that a photocopy of the pages would show up much more clearly. Then again, perhaps it is easier for me to simply type out the contents of the pages and send them via email. Not only this, but writing out a whole chapter would perhaps be the best way to learn the chapter, even though it would take me quite a while to do it. Or would it take that long? The possibilities float in my mind like lofty, airy feathers. But they all have to wait. I head to the gym to start a daunting workout.

            It’s hard to come back to the gym after a long hiatus away from it. I even hesitate after handing the gym employee my dusty old card dating back to 2009, thinking all the magnetic stuff probably rubbed off of it years ago. 2009 is almost seven years ago. Luckily, the card remained intact in my wallet, along with an obscure and oversized yellow card I had for the Track and Field center on Church Street. Though that gym was quiet and peaceful, there wasn’t a wide selection of weights or exercises to choose from when I had gone there. I spent much of my time on the track itself, but not much time on weights.

            Today’s workout is a mixture of today’s and yesterday’s pain. Today’s pain consists of the stretch and strain of biceps, as I overdo the arm exercises this time. Yesterday’s pain is just the shadowy acidic pain I feel in my legs every so often from cramps. The first half hour is great, but then I decide to overdo it on deadlifts. I feel the slight aches here and there in the sides, as I head to the mats to do sit ups, and every other ‘up’ exercise I can think of (leg ups, hand ups, head ups). When it’s quarter to eight, I decide to get changed and go home to continue writing and making posts in my new course. I walk home and reflect that it was a good idea for me to do some work out, especially the seven minute treadmill at the beginning. I feel better, and I seem to have more energy. But then, I also reflect that I can overdo it, thinking I need to overload my muscles with successively higher weights. I decide just to appreciate the fact that I feel better, even though I didn’t do as many reps as I wanted to or expected myself to do.

I manage to find time to write down more ideas I have about my final paper. And now I am writing this piece for the blog. Who is doing all this? Not sure. But whatever or whoever I think it is, can’t really be ‘it’ at all.

Why do situations never happen in the way that thoughts happen? Thoughts are quite often neatly packaged plans. They spell out the heart’s wishes, as well as the steps needed to fulfill those wishes. But situations are not the same as thoughts. Situations are just situations. The thought arises, “lift that 30 pound weight and swing it valiantly 12 times over your head”. And the situation that arises is, “I inch that 25 pound weight slightly past the forehead, 8.5 times”. We usually take sides with the previous thought, because it looks better. It’s the tall and handsome thought, the one that proclaims what should or could come next. It’s no wonder that the present situation is compared with the previous thought, and found wanting! But both thought and situation are just separate occurrences. They don’t relate. Neither thought nor situation has any say in how things play out. They are both just temporary phenomena.

            So what does it mean to just ‘see what’s there’? I guess it means, I see what I thought  I should do, then note what arises after that, then see that they are both just phenomena. The thought doesn’t determine what is happening in the moment. If I can just let go for a moment and see the phenomena as it arises after the intention, I see that it has its own effect. And I relax into that effect. If I have the thought, “do 12 reps” and only 8 come out….letting go would mean seeing that 8 reps has its own peculiar joy and existence. It doesn’t require the label of ‘worse’ than 12. It has its own unique being or effect. Even if I cannot do 12, 8 reps has its own benefit. It keeps me humble. It helps me not overshoot myself. It has its own release mechanism in my body. I can just see the unfolding situation as it is and find a way to appreciate it as it is. Not always possible, but it’s a kind of practice of letting go of comparing and judging based on a preconceived thought of what should happen in a situation.