This life may be �OK� in a certain sense � certainly there are moments of pleasure and satisfaction � but the once-imagined joy, the freedom and security that beckoned are not quite right. Things feel stale and confining and splintered, a strait jacket that once looked like wings. There are good moments to be sure, but something is missing. Worse, this all may have happened more than once. And worst of all may be the realization that there is no one to blame but myself.

Actually, coming to such a realization, however cloying it may feel, is quite a good thing. Think of the number of people who spend their whole lives trying to make someone or something else responsible for where and who they are. Further, it is precisely such a realization that can encourage a willingness to do something about it. And further still, there are skills that have accumulated: We know what DOESN�T work � the many things that only lead back to the old circle of dreams that turn into strait jackets.

The willingness to do something about it. Is there some way to settle matters and if so what is that way?

As a first step there has to be some examination of the situation. So i took a vacation. What is the nature of this beast? What is it that leads from joy to sorrow and back again, from a sense of wholeness to a sense of fragmentation and back again? It doesn�t seem to work when I lay my problems and pleasures at someone else�s doorstep, so I examine my own doorstep.

With some examination, things grow a bit clearer. Isn�t it my own habits, built up over a lifetime, that seem to guide these steps. And what are those habits? Looking as closesly as possible, I find that those wily Buddhists weren�t too far wrong: Greed, anger and folly, spliced together with attachments to each, are forceful indeed. I want what I want when I want it, but have I really taken the time to examine who this �I� is? The answer comes back, no I haven�t. I have assumed I know who I am and acted accordingly. If I dream it, it must be so. Since it doesn�t turn out �so,� something is out of whack.

Examining further, I discover change, a matter about which I was capable of saying a great deal but incapable of really acknowledging in my heart or actualizing in my life. If I acknowledge change in the deepest possible way, where would that leave �Me?"� you know, the �me� with dreams and staleness, with joy and strait jackets, the one who is the same from one day to the next, the one others call �man� or �woman,� �kind� or �unkind,� �tall� or �short,� �wise� or �deluded,� �father� or �mother,� �rich� or �poor?� Without the handholds, where would �I� be? On the other hand, WITH the handholds, where has it gotten �me?�

Without the handholds is scary. With the handholds is unsatisfactory. This examining business leads to some tight and fiery places. Sometimes there is a desire to fall back into a realm of blaming and crediting others, of being full of perfect dreams that dissolve on contact, of a sure-footed �me� who succeeds and fails� bring on the Tooth Fairy or God or Easter Bunny or magic bullet! But there is no going back for those who take their examinations seriously. Stopping before the examination is over � falling into old reliable ways of finding the one sure answer � is a fool�s mission, a zealot�s delight. There is only one direction � forward.

It takes courage and patience and doubt. Change is everywhere and always and examining its furthest reaches is the task at hand. Breath after breath, day after day, week after week, year after year. Talk is cheap. Examination is expensive � examination will rob you deaf, dumb and blind. But as we came into the world penniless and naked, so pennilessness and nakedness are not so bad. When there is nothing to buy, why buy it? How could we don what we already have on? Doesn�t the sun feel good against this naked skin?

I heard that Soen Roshi, my teacher�s teacher, once stood before a group of Zen students and asked, �Do you want to see what a bodhisattva looks like?� And he proceeded to strip down to his skivvies. Layer after layer of robes � down to his skivvies, at which point he said something like, �there are some things even a bodhisattva doesn�t take off.�

Layer after layer is examined. Layer after layer is set aside. Layer after layer of comfort and camouflage.

What we keep on and what we take off is entirely our responsibility. Not taking responsibility leads to dissatisfaction. Taking responsibility � well, it�s like skinny dipping � doesn�t that feel better? And being naked, how would it be possible to fail?

There� doesn�t the sun feel good against this naked skin?