Yes

The other morning I was sitting in Zazen counting breaths when the thought occurred to me, “Maybe I have a rhythm problem.”

Zazen is the Zen practice of “Just sitting.” It’s simple, profound, often very hard. I love the zendo at the neighborhood Zen center, but even so, my formal Zazen practice is irregular at best. Walking into that spare, austere space lit only by candles and natural light, I can literally feel my blood pressure dropping. Yet, I can manage for weeks upon end to find very convincing excuses not to prioritize the meditation practice in my life.

Perhaps it was literally the act of counting that triggered my rhythmic insight as I sat there, but regardless of its origin, I knew this thought was something I needed to ponder.

Already 2024 has proven to be an intense year. Not bad, just intense. My teaching schedule has been more full than usual, with extra lessons and coachings. My weekends have included a number of concerts and rehearsals. I spent 24 hours in Colorado with a friend. There were those 36 hours in bed with the stomach flu a few weeks ago. We have had friends and fellow musicians visiting, which meant several spontaneous dinner parties and lovely hours catching up over wine or coffee. After whining for several years wanting gear so I could get up into the mountains during the winter, I bought snowshoes, and have spent a couple afternoons traipsing through the snow in the Sandias. All in all, the first month of the new year has been a good one, but intense.

Which is why, perhaps, I found myself wondering about my rhythm.

Or maybe more specifically, I found myself wondering about the rhythm of my practices. A generous definition of Zazen suggests that everything in our lives is Zazen, the time on the meditation cushion being just a sliver of the practice. And practice, by its very definition, implies a sort of dailiness. Both the gifts and the challenges of practicing arise in the act of showing up every day: on good days and bad days; when it’s sunny, when it’s rainy; on Mondays and on Fridays; summer and winter. You show up and do the work. That’s practice.

But what occurred to me as I sat there that morning and counted my breaths is that while this definition of practice was ideal, it was also a bit rigid, and didn’t honor the natural rhythms or cycles of the world around us. Seasons, after all, have a rhythm. There is the time to plant and the time to sow. There are the months of green leaves and the months of bare branches. There is the season to hike and the season to snowshoe. There are the outdoor tasks in the garden during warmer weather, and the indoor tasks around the house during the colder weeks. We sit Zazen in the dark mornings and even darker evenings during fall and winter months, and follow our breaths watching the gentle light of dawn and dusk during spring and summer months. All of it has its perfect time and place.

Even the Judeo-Christian tradition of Sabbath-keeping suggest a balance of work and rest. Historically, however, this is not how I have viewed practicing in my life. Instead, I have always maintained a rather inflexible opinion of how to manage my many practices—piano, meditation, gardening, yoga, swimming—and held myself responsible for quite literally checking all the practice boxes every single day. Students and I spend countless hours discussing practice hacks like managing streaks or adopting the good old “5 More Minutes” trick. And certainly, these things too have their place.

It's complicated, practice. It’s nuanced and intricate and it’s needs and demands change constantly. Sometimes it dances along in a cheerful 3/4. Other times it steadily walks forward in a square 4/4. Still other times it sits in an awkward 5/8, or shifts time signatures without warning or reason and asks us to show some rhythmic flexibility and skill. First a minuet then a foxtrot, now a waltz then suddenly, a tango! No wonder we trip over our feet, trying desperately to catch our breath.

Because as the last month has shown, my days are hardly balanced, let along metronomic and predictable. While I might prefer weeks where I have the perfect schedule of teaching and practicing, laps in the pool and time on the yoga mat, house chores and garden tasks, this would be the exception and not the norm. I find myself drawn to Zen retreat day schedules –or Zazenkai—which alternate periods silent meditation with walking practice and work practice, meals and Dharma talks. 6:00-6:50am Zazen…6:50-7:00am walking meditation…7:00-7:50 Zazen…8:00am breakfast…8:00-8:40pm Zazen…A beautifully ordered and constructed day from dawn to dusk. I exhale deeply just thinking about it.

Instead, my reality is a sophisticated, and often cranky, version of choosing this over that. An hour in the garden clearing flowerbeds versus 40 minutes in the pool. A deep dive into the backlog of communications and emails versus a leisurely period of time following a thought from beginning to end on paper. A day connecting with a friend versus a day of good time on the piano bench. A streak of meals of vegetables and grains after a holiday month chockablock with baked goods. A Saturday skipping household chores to spend an afternoon on the crest. A morning lie-in with the cats after one too many late-night rehearsals. Daily, we steal from Peter to pay Paul. We tweak and edit and redirect our attention and energy from week to week, or from hour to hour, or even from minute to minute. The practice is in the dance between time signatures.

So what matters? The discipline of a daily practice? Yes. The flexibility of a practice that ebbs and flows? Yes. Practice boxes? Yes. A day spent in silence after a weekend of gigs? Yes. An evening spent needlepointing and listening to Brahms? Yes. A routine that is stable and consistent? Yes. Practicing sabbath-keeping? Yes. Adhering to a regular schedule of tasks and chores? Yes. A nimble 90-degree turn on a day’s expectations? Yes. A deliberate pregnant pause after a big project? Yes. A perfectly balanced practice of work and play? Yes. A perfectly imbalanced practice of work and play? Yes.

Maybe in the end it’s all about rhythm. Or so it seemed to me that cold morning as I sat on my meditation cushion in the simple Zendo down the street. Sometimes clarity comes with the breath. Or at least an idea worth wrestling with as I walked home and considered the day ahead.