Surprise! Meditation is SO not Zen
When people use the word “Zen” to describe their feelings of peace and tranquility, or a super simple, austere, chill vibe, I laugh heartily (and a little evil-y).
If they only knew!
Learning how to meditate, living in a Zen monastery, being “in the moment” are the most challenging, treacherous, complicated experiences of my life.
Why?
Because being “Zen” means learning how to face yourself. As you are.
Now, now, now, and now.
When you’re delighted, when you’re petty, when you feel whole, when you feel fractured, when you look great, when you look like shit.
When you’re here for it! And when you’re so totally over it.
Zen practice is the opposite of that big sale event—everything must go! Everything must be seen, touched, explored, and experienced.
Every single thing.
Now, at the end of the day, that big sale’s on and everything WILL go by way of impermanence, but your personal hell will stick around like that off-brand pair of last year’s socks if you pretend it’s not happening.
If relief from suffering is what you’re after, the very worst thing you can do is try to “be zen.”
Allow me to explain:
This morning during mediation, I thought I heard a group of coyotes far away. We live deep in the woods, so this wouldn’t be unusual, but I couldn’t be sure. It was just a few distant yips, not at all the high-pitched barking rampage we sometimes hear when the pack is closer.
Maybe it’s just a bird?
Hmmm...I thought, listening.
Listening.
Listening.
Nothing.
Our dog CC gave a slight growl in her sleep.
Aha! Definitely coyotes.
See? (to no one in particular, just the internal doubter who doesn’t believe her own ears).
When I first started practicing Zen, 25 years ago, a story like this one would have driven me i n s a n e.!
Why?
Because on my meditation cushion I was wrestling with real, live, actual DEMONS in a life or death duel.
Wondering about the source of some distant sound in the woods was something other people did, people who had no idea what it was like to truly suffer.
People who listened to coyotes had nothing to do with me.
But look at what happened.
After two decades of studying myself, in all my glory, I woke up and sat on my cushion and became a person I didn’t recognize.
I caught myself having kind of a “Zen” moment, in the sense of it being slow, and gentle and nature-related. Not me-related,
And it almost scared me!
Have I gotten soft?
Am I dissociated?
Missing something?
Who are you?
Wow. I have no idea, do I?
Becoming mindful, being in the moment, is rarely a “Zen” experience, but when we really pay attention, we just might be pleasantly surprised.