I have a confession. It's been a while since I attended the Zen Center, did Zazen, or read up on Zen. That, and I copied Scarlett Johanssen's haircut in Lost in Translation. In the back of my head I have been embarrassed by my lack of practice in the Zen matter - it seems to denote a lack of determination & persistence. What have I been doing? I've been freewheeling off a slippery slope and living my 27 to the fullest since New Years (this is a vague implication of 'I partied & indulged my lil' heart out'), all the while ignoring a splinter in my head, sending tingly sensations that I've been a bad girl. 
It's interesting how ill-feelings accumulate so imperceptibly through time. At first, I thought I was expressing myself to the fullest, living without regrets. Then day-by-day I started losing my identity. I didn't know outward expression and inward introspection can be in opposition if not balanced. At some point, I started being scared of meditation because there's just TOO MUCH to think about, I was scared of touching those thoughts. I felt I could never go through that big pile, and I didn't want to face what was rotting in there. In effect, I've paralyzed myself with too much self-expectation. Today I realized, the splinter only existed in my head... An illusion, it is.
I'm putting in a new illusion now. The story goes, I've stopped on the way, took a dive in the pool & enjoyed the waterfall off the side of the road. The views were spectacular- something to be treasured forever, like drinking Whisky from a Camel Backpack and watching Lake Tahoe from the top of a snowy mountain. And now off I go again, continuing down the slopes... ripping it up.
Thanks, Anny. Thanks, Perry. It's good to have buddies.
Thank YOU 33!!! I know what you mean about the "losing your identity"...I think it's part of the "No-Self" concept that I'm trying to better grasp myself...I have always heard practice teachers mention about how Buddhist have the concept of No-Self but a lot of the highly developed monks have a strong sense of their self...Don't have the illusion that you're a bad girl or have ill-feelings...we are not in positions to be thinking those things of others nor ourselves!
I like your metaphor of stopping by the side of the road and enjoying the waterfall. Sometimes we simply do that. We trudge along, then we take a break. We may decide to turn around and head back where we came from, or we continue after some rest. Point is: we often need to stop the noise created by our constant motion so that we can think, evaluate, and motivate. Even the persevering tortoise has to rest. In fact, I feel that if we rush headlong into Zen without the reflection and/or doubt that a break affords, we'd be treating Zen the same way we did our fast lives before we learned Zen. Bad girl or not, partying or not, go easy on yourself and get back to Zen when you want to.
I know what you mean, 33, about the fear of losing our identity. My experience with Zen has been such that, while I already feel the very real benefits my short practice has given me (and I feel that I've only dipped my toes into a bottomless ocean), I'm somehow alarmed by some of what should be considered desirable changes I see in myself. I used to define myself by my vices and my independent taste. For much of my twenties, I hadn't seen myself as successful or particularly outstanding in any quality today's society deems important. I wasn't on any track in a career to great wealth or prestige, and I couldn't measure up to the standard of earning a postgraduate degree. Because of the barrier I was uninterested in or, more frankly, incapable of surmounting, I saw myself as different from most of my peers, whom I saw as mindlessly driven by greed, consumerism, and conformity, wrapped in a theme of "bow down to the man, the big, big man who grants us the American dream if we make him lots of money". I was pained by my seeming inability to fit in as an adult in this post-postmodern, whatever-you-wanna-call-it world. So I took to drink, smoke, drugs, stimulus-driven revelry, and I allowed myself to indulge in my pain, in my indifference, in my difference from "them". I further separated myself by developing discriminating tastes in media, in what I read, watched, and listened to. I was the off-the-beaten-path (but Beat-reading), quirky, art-house, and incredibly deep independent who was experiencing the dark, the unpolished, and the anachronistic to understand the human condition, because I knew that the human condition didn't exist in the gleaming corporate towers, the multi-color iPods, and polluting Hummers where everyone else was looking. (Like I was the only one.) How disillusioned and misguided I was. How self-righteous and self-indulgent. But that was my identity. That was me. That set me apart from the blob of excited, vibrating humanity.
I'm not like I was anymore. Since I began Zen practice (although another major event has helped change my life, as well), I prefer to not drink, not intoxicate via drugs, and not lie. I've even given up my fully-ingrained, nine-year-long addiction to nicotine. I find myself more willing to just yield when I feel conflict boiling up inside. I haven't punched a wall in over a year (coincidentally, my temper was what made me become serious with my practice). I like the people I work with, and I think they like me, and I'm not talking about the knee-jerk-reaction niceness here. I go to lunch with people, and we talk about family, concerns, and feelings. I volunteer to house data on indigenous peoples across the world and to help children, and I motivate people to donate old shoes. In other words, I'm boring. I'm still me, but I'm not me. I'm probably more productive and engaged than I've been in a long while, but I feel so mellow, even-keeled--so bland. There is no edge in me. And while the overall palette of my taste hasn't changed (thank Moses), I'm not nearly as preferential. Sometimes I find myself in states where I can go with or without music (which was inconceivable before). Indie or blockbuster. Bjork or Maroon 5 (outrageous!). Basically I'm not picky, and I've become more receptive to whatever's around. If I'm like this at the age of 27, will I become a blank wall for people to piss on someday? That kind of scares me. If my practice deepens and I find myself in others and they in myself, would I lose my identity?
Of course, I wouldn't know the answer until I get there. But perhaps a hint lies in this observation: I'm no longer the alienated soul I had been for the past five, six years; the person whom I was those five, six years wasn't the driven teenager I was in high-school; and that person wasn't the happy boy I was in childhood. Point is: I know they have all been me yet are surely distinct. Perhaps people are meant to change and the identity that I'm afraid of "losing" isn't really me anyway (or, at least, it's not worth holding so tightly onto). It is frightening, though; it sure takes encourage to see yourself change.
Thanks for reading my post.
wow, p, everything you're describing I can relate to...