Zen and the Not Zen

Recently I have been working a lot, and while I find the balance of working 8 hours/then coming home and driving everywhere/feeding the horde/etc. almost impossible—hats off to everyone who does this all the time—the rhythm of being in a school, of working in an academic schedule, of a day broken into 40 minute blocks—all of these things are so delicious. There is zen in these moments, that sense of balance and peace that can be so elusive when everything in life is hitting the fan.

And when things are NOT hitting the fan, I feel acutely aware of how, in the words of Cosmo Sheldrake, “there’s no such thing as time to kill or time to throw away.” I have to use the time…

But I get stuck. I turn into a slug.

Maybe part of zen is accepting the moments of not zen, of accepting the stuck., of embracing the slug.

Ew.

I wonder if the Dalai Lama ever gets frazzled or overwhelmed by all the things? He is the most zen person I can think of. I wonder if he sometimes feels so much the weight of things, the old “the world is too much with us” reality.

The other day I did not have to go to school. My house was quiet and empty, the sky gray and cold. The hours before pickup #1 stretched out in a quilt of possibility.

Cue Slug Mode. 

Where was my do all the things? 

Where was my “no time to throw away”?

Sluuuuuuuuuuuuggy.

I made myself go on the exercise bike…when I know I have to exercise but feel like a slug, I know I can distract myself with YouTube while I get in 22 minutes on the bike. So I did. Building habits helps push past slug moments, even if in this case I was just a slug on a bike. 

I have not missed a day of yoga since January 1 (a goal for the year, even if it’s only 5 minutes)…so after the bike I decided to pick a quick yoga video. But hey, I said to myself, as I prepared to choose a yoga video on YouTube, first I’ll watch the new John Legend “Preach” video while I cool off for a second.

Fast forward 5 minutes to me in a weeping heap on my yoga mat.

Probably not Mr. Legend’s intention, but his artistic representation of how pain and injustice run rampant in our world flattened me. Literally to the ground, face to yoga mat, tears streaming.

How do we fix this? How do we end violence and strife and awfulness? How do we end the dehumanizing of each other? 

Does zen even matter? How do we fix this? 

I wish I could say that a blinding light appeared and an answer presented itself. 

Nope. 

I managed to scrape myself up and do some vinyasa flow to Brandi Carlile music, just trying to breathe, regroup, and settle my emotions.

15 minutes later, I trudged upstairs to my still empty house, a few less hours spread before me. My phone blinked a pile of notifications—

One of Dave’s family members had texted to share that a new baby would be joining the family in late summer.

And here, I CAN say that a light appeared, and in that group text flurry fest of hoorays and congratulations and smiles there was hope. Hope that life does go on, and families grow, and new beginnings keep beginning.

Awfulness still pervades so many daily interactions in America (and elsewhere). Injustice did not get fixed in that few minutes on a Friday morning.  But hope continues, and I could feel that.

Really—what came to me out of this day was a deep realization that it is ok to feel deeply. Maybe part of zen is NOT always staying completely unflappable—that is so outside the realm of my personality, I am flapping about all the time, a veritable Flappy McFlapmeister.

Even as we work to respond and not react to provocations both negative and positive—feeling deeply is good, and human, and honestly I think how God made us. Elie Weisel wrote about the perils of indifference, how NOT caring is worse than hate, more destructive and dehumanizing.  To feel deeply builds connection and wholeheartedness (to borrow from Brene Brown).  Freaking out-not healthy or productive. But the opposite of freaking out is not “I am a rock, I am an island.” I have tried that. That is misery, too.

My own quest for zen has, perhaps, been something of a quest to heal a lot of pain built up over a lot of years. Zen doesn’t mean being an automaton, or so deeply om-ing about that you disconnect from sorrow OR joy.  Zen isn’t hardening yourself so that you are impervious to stress (sigh). Maybe zen really means feeling the feelings, acknowledging that they are real, sitting with them, and continuing on may ultimately be what zen is all about.

Feeling all the feelings is hard.

Weeping over injustice and the pain of others, rejoicing in the joys of others—living life fully, engaging in the hard and the beautiful without getting sucked under—here is the challenge of zen.  I guess in my definition, zen really just means living in a state of shared humanity. Once again, in movin’ right along, I circle back to this. And once again, we return to zen as a journey, a progress, a path…living in a way that honors every other person as awesome. 

Phoo. I definitely need more coffee.