Waking Up Worried

I wake up worried this morning.

It takes me a while to realize this. At first I think I’m just thinking. But then I notice that all my thoughts are about difficulties and problems. Nothing terrible—I’m worried that my cosmos seedlings have grown too big and won’t survive indoors long enough for the weather to warm up. I wonder about the new programs for the Temple that have occurred to me and how quickly and directly I should act on my ideas. Then I cross over to the decade long koan of the relationship of Boundless Way Temple (the Temple) to Boundless Way Zen (the larger organization that the Temple is a part of) and wonder what I can do going forward to help everything move forward. Everywhere I look there is some problem that needs to be resolved.

I begin to notice that I am going on and on. Images in my mind—fragments of conversations I have had and perhaps should have. Thoughts of what needs to be done. I am in a state of general unease. I have a sense of heaviness and dull responsibility. My thoughts jump from one topic to the next and I am looking for a way out. It’s like I’m in a forest at dusk. There are no paths and I’m trying to find my way out. I’m not terrified, but I really don’t want to spend the night in this particular forest. I want to find my way into the clearing.

Now I begin to put some things together.

I have the great insight that this is a familiar place. Now this is not a small thing to realize this. So many mind-states appear so often and are so familiar that we take them to be ‘reality.’ In this worried place this morning, I first imagine that I am just considering reality. This mildly worried, first-thing-in-the-morning mind-state appears to me as simply a measured consideration of the troubled state of my life. I am unaware of my part in creating this trouble for myself. I unconsciously accept the premise beneath all these thoughts—that the world is a troublesome place and my only way out is to think harder.

It’s as if my mind has created something for itself to do. Perhaps my left-brain was feeling left out by all the right-brain dreaming through the night. This rational figuring out part of my brain was simply wanting some business—wanting to come on line and join in the action. (I have noticed that if I am having trouble waking up in the morning, all I have to do is call to mind something upsetting and I get a shot of energy – like the warning siren comes on and all systems run to their battle stations. I don’t do this too often, because though its effective, it’s a little unpleasant.)

It’s now 4:45 and I’m still lying in bed in the dark room. I realize that there is this similar quality to all my thoughts. Wherever I ‘look’ I see some kind of difficulty that feels heavy and slightly difficult. This is the tip off for me. I’m not really thinking and problem solving. I’m in the realm of worry. I know I can’t think my way out of this realm, it is perfectly self-contained with the seeming capacity to go on forever.

So I try to stop worrying.

This doesn’t help. I remember that I haven’t yet made the call to my friend to see if I can get a small piece of his huge hosta that I admire every summer and claim the next spring I will stop by and take a few shoots for the Temple garden. But where would I put it? And so it goes. And so it goes.

My mind, this morning wants to worry. Resistance, this morning, is futile. So I stretch a little then sit up and swing my feet to the floor. I turn on the grow light at the foot of my bed, put on my slippers and down vest and go down to the kitchen with my worrisome mind. It’s not the best company. I’d like to be someone more cheerful, but I’m all I’ve got, so I make the best of it.

Writing about it helps. At least I can be interested in this difficult self. Turning towards it, examining it makes it feel a little less personal. This is just the weather of the morning. I’m still a little worried, but it’s loosening its grip. My body remembers that this particular state, like everything else, comes and goes on its own.

Personal Practice: The next time you are in a difficult mind-state, see if you can be aware that you are in a difficult mind-state. The familiar ones are hardest to notice. Can you notice what it is like? What is the quality of feeling for you here? What are the patterns or rhythms of this place? Can you think your way out of this place? If so, please do. If not, can you allow yourself to simply be like this for a while? Notice what happens.