One of the most common guidelines for participating in Zen practice with others is “follow the schedule”
or “let the schedule be the teacher”. Underlying both these admonitions is one of the Zen Buddhism’s
many openly hidden teachings: just show up.
Just show up. Exceedingly simple, subtly profound. But what does it mean to ‘just show up’?
Zen Buddhism, like many wisdom traditions is approached, met, experienced, and lived, on
(provisionally speaking) multiple levels, and these levels are constantly changing. The levels are not
necessarily vertical, as in climbing a ladder. Not necessarily horizontal, as in walking a path to a fixed
destination. More like a twilight hike in foggy mountains. Slippery, uneven ground, up and down,
necessarily paying attention to completing each step before beginning the next. Not knowing where one
was, or is going, but necessarily knowing thoroughly where one is.
The first step in just showing up is just that…showing up. Whatever one’s practice is, regular sitting
alone or with others, regular study, receiving Zen teachings, sangha practice, whatever it is, one has to
just show up. The world is a swirling roiling seething mass of causes and conditions. This is the nature of
our lives. It is our circum-stance, that which surrounds us wherever we are right now. To make Zen
practice fruitful we have to show up in the midst of our mess.
And when one doesn’t show up, show up for not showing up. How is this done? Notice not showing up.
Notice not with a mind of judgement or comparison. Notice without guilt, blame, or shame. Without
excuses or explanations. To notice not showing up IS just showing up.
This noticing not showing up is a kind of initiatory revelation, a mini-enlightenment. Like a bad image on
a screen, once seen it can’t be unseen. Once one really notices not showing up, this noticing begins to
creep into more and more into daily life. All our excuses, all our legitimate explanations, all the reasons
for our not showing up, all begin to lose their hold on our choices, our actions…our not showing up.
Like a snowball rolling down a mountain, gaining momentum, picking up weight as it goes, just showing
up begins to be increasingly present in everyday life. Over time the snowball rolls over not showing up,
picks it up, incorporates it completely. One big indistinguishable mass of showing up and not showing
up. Noticing showing up, noticing not showing up. Not the different yet not the same.
Glimpsing this “Zen secret” of just showing up is one basis of transformative practice. So let us all,
moment and moment…just show up.