My body is the kind of body that doesn’t like to do that sort of thing. I finally did begin my practice in 1989, and for years I was in intense pain. I didn’t start sitting, but I read a lot of books for the next seven or eight years. I started reading a lot of books about Zen. When I read it I said to myself, I have no idea what this is, but this is the truth. It’ll make you feel better.” It was Alan Watts’s The Way of Zen. I’d just had a really bad breakup with a girl and I was moping around, and my roommate said, “Read this. People are not into that-they appreciate it, but they’re not into it. I’m becoming comfortable taking longer with my work, and as a consequence the paintings are getting better. I can’t remember which came first, my art or Zen. I thought, my mom obviously wants to kill me.
![emma taply emma taply](https://d32dm0rphc51dk.cloudfront.net/vKPANQe15oSfmSlc7YVklA/large.jpg)
I went to the zendo and got very formal instruction. I got into Zen because my mom was into Zen. And the meditation helped me recover some kind of savoring of life. The people I was close to started to die, and there was a period of time for about a year when I didn’t want to go out. I was working at Gay Men’s Health Crisis, and at ACT UP. She said, we’re meditating at my apartment. Roshi was my professor, and one day after I graduated I saw her on the street, and her head was shaved.
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What elevates it is that you try to be aware of it at every moment. But there’s also the Buddha having a screaming fit at the dog for peeing on the rug. They think Zen is the buddha sitting strong-and that’s true. It’s because they misunderstand what Zen is. I’m one of the most un-Zen people on the planet. And when you connect like that, that’s Tango. Your awareness goes, not just to your center of gravity, but to the center of gravity you’re creating together. You have to be in the moment, right there with the person you’re dancing with. At the first lesson, you stand really straight, put your hands on your stomach, breath so that you can feel your stomach-it’s this whole physical thing. I got up to thirteen before I remembered to go back to one! The instructor said, let’s do this for five minutes, just count your breath up to ten and then start over. I took beginning meditation instruction at the Village Zendo in 2002.
![emma taply emma taply](https://i.pinimg.com/280x280_RS/40/a5/14/40a514df1bbe802c7efc36265c9eafad.jpg)
So when I heard about a silent month retreat with the Village Zendo, I thought that sounded weird and funky and I’d love to try that. We’ll have a slumber party, and we’re not going to speak. I’d get together with one of my friends, someone I felt comfortable with, and I’d say, let’s do something this weekend, let’s not talk. I used to occasionally spend a weekend not talking.
EMMA TAPLY SERIES
Here's a series I did in the fall of 2011 called "Ordinary Zen." I photographed my friends from the Zendo meditating at home, and interviewed them about their practice.