Being Zen (eBook)

Chapter1: Skating on Thin Ice

Ihave a picture on my wall of a girl ice-skating. She's gliding along, arms heldhigh and head thrown back. Seemingly carefree, she's oblivious to a nearbysign: BEWARE OF THIN ICE. Does this sound familiar?

Mostof us cruise through life on automatic pilot. Perhaps things are going well, orat least our life is currently disaster-free. We may have a decent job,supportive relationships, and good physical health, yet even as we glide along,we have an intangible sense of how thin the ice beneath us is. We can sense theanxious quiver that vibrates with vague dissatisfaction, fields of unhealedpain, and unaddressed fears. Yet most of the time we choose not to look beneaththe surface.

Whenour life takes a turn for the worse, when we start encountering cracks in theice, what do we do? We try to clean up the surface, making our usual efforts topush away or overcome the difficulties. Or we might try to skate around thecracks by ignoring or suppressing our reactions to unpleasant events.

Inan attempt to keep from falling through the cracks in the ice, we choose ourstrategy, either working harder at maintaining control of our lives or makingmisguided attempts to escape from our difficulties with diversions, pleasures,or busyness. Rarely do we question our strategies, which are always rooted infear. We believe in them as the unquestioned truth. Yet in doing so, we defineour own boundaries, our own restrictions. Consequently our life narrows down toa sense of vague dissatisfaction.

Whatare these strategies that we use to erect a seemingly solid ground in order toavoid facing our fears? They are as varied as people's personalities. Some arestrategies of control—,trying to maintain order to ward off a sense ofimpending chaos. Some are strategies of success involving the drive to getahead, to be on top—,geared to override that nagging inner compulsion to proveour worth. There are strategies of conformity that seek the imagined comfort offitting in, and strategies of nurturing—,hoping to find security in beingneeded and appreciated. There are also strategies of neediness, in which weassume the identity of weakness and desperately attempt to be saved by aperson, a group, or an institution, and strategies of diversion—,seeking onepleasure after another to fill the deep holes of longing and loneliness. Thelist goes on and on.

Sometimeswe have to fall right into the icy water, unable to move or breathe,overwhelmed and drowning, before we're forced to deal with the deep-seatedconditioning that runs our life—,all the land mines of anger, fear, andconfusion. It might take an illness, a financial upheaval, a relationshipfailure, or the death of someone close to us to wake us up and force us to justbe in that icy water.

Whenwe fall into these unwanted situations, we can no longer strategize to avoidfacing our pain. It's right in front of us! The loss of financial security, ourhealth, or a relationship, for example, will bring fear right to the surface,and we're likely to feel anger, self-pity, depression, and confusion. How wework with these will be a measure of how we understand what our life is trulyabout. The good fortune of having a strong and genuine spiritual practice mayenable us to do something besides just seek comfort and escape when we're hitwith one of life's inevitable blows.

Inthe early seventies I bought a house with a little land in northern California.For eleven years we cultivated an extensive organic garden. Our goal was tolive from the land, which included raising goats for milk and chickens andsheep for meat. It was a nice life, and...