M.I.A.

Lately I've come to deeply appreciate the beauty of people leaving and returning to our practice at the zendo. Sometimes people come and go on a regular basis. Sometimes they leave for years and then find their way back. And sometimes, of course, they never return.

What is this about? I know that in my case it took me approximately 15 years to find my way back. I started at the Long Beach Zen Center in 1985, left for Japan in 1987, and didn't reconnect with Sensei Bob McNeil until 2001. I will never forget rounding the corner of Sensei's old driveway and telling myself, "Aah, I am home again. Time to sit!"

Freedom means putting to rest the notion that it is always "good to stay and bad to leave" or vice versa. Only our discriminating consciousness tells us this is so. In actuality, our coming and going is of no more or less significance than our next inhalation and exhalation. As simple as in, out, in, out. Who knows if the next breath will come? In the meantime, stop the mental masturbation and just sit.