“Noth­ing like really seeing… â€

1. Do it Now

Pro­cras­ti­na­tion is deadly. The odd part is that the most deadly vari­ety tends to be being proac­tive in other areas. For exam­ple, I’ve worked with peo­ple who come in with a short list of issues — say, want­ing things to be bet­ter with their career, and also want­ing a bet­ter rela­tion­ship with their part­ner. They throw them­selves into the work issue, and may even cre­ate some suc­cess. But the rela­tion­ship stuff seems to fall off the radar.

Then, of course, a rela­tion­ship prob­lem re-emerges.

Here’s the odd part. Rather than throw them­selves into the rela­tion­ship with aban­don equal to what they cre­ated with their career, they make excuses. Or, rather, point to their suc­cess in other areas. “But… but… I’m doing so well with my career!â€

Zen Liv­ing: every­thing is unique. In other words, we deal with every­thing one-at-a-time (like putting on your pants, one leg at a time…) Noth­ing applies to other things. You must work on each thing, and be vig­i­lant all the time.

It’s quite easy to pick the “fun-est†thing first, and then get so trans­fixed by it that the other stuff falls to the way­side. Or, to work on some­thing, get the results you want, and assume that “things†will just look after them­selves. The truth is that this work requires both patience and diligence.

2. Prac­tice

This flows out of the first point, and I sus­pect we might ben­e­fit from proac­tive prac­tice. In other words, rather than hop­ing that things will go “OK,†that we actively look for oppor­tu­ni­ties to chal­lenge our­selves. And the “thing†we have to work with is our life. Or more specif­i­cally, the issues that arise. After all, any moron can be suc­cess­ful… when noth­ing is going wrong.

Most peo­ple get to a cer­tain com­fort level with this work, and then slow down or stop. Exam­ple: They have a dia­logue with a friend or part­ner, amd dis­cover much to talk about, and then find a topic or a direc­tion that raises a few hack­les (in them, or their part­ner reacts to the topic,) so that’s where they stop — they pull back one step from the “juice.â€

Zen liv­ing: per­haps, the place to be liv­ing is on the “shaky side†of every line. If cer­tain top­ics are scary or chargy, talk about those things. I find it fun, when talk­ing with friends, to notice their dis­com­fort, and to say some­thing like, “I can see that you don’t want to talk about this, so would you like to talk about talk­ing about it?â€

Run­ning away, avoid­ing, danc­ing around — all are ways to stay stuck in the drama, while excus­ing your­self. No excuses! Just see each thing as one more thing — one more way to bring your­self into the Now.

3. “Free Your Mind, the Rest Will Fol­low†— The Band

Let­ting go of your mind’s dom­i­nance is the most dif­fi­cult part of the Zen path, or any path of self aware­ness. The mind is sticky and slip­pery, and much of it is highly invested in main­tain­ing the story you tell yourself.

Sto­ries are the cur­rency of the mind. We think we know who we are, and believe our own press releases about how the world is. Many are the clients who tell them­selves all kinds of provoca­tive tales — how hard done by they are, how their near­est and dear­est are tak­ing advan­tage of them, how they have no choice when they act like spoiled chil­dren. It’s as if, just because they’ve looked at things one way since they were 16, they MUST look at things that way until they die.

There is noth­ing “true†about any of the sto­ries you tell your­self. Now, sure, you were born, had par­ents, and stuff hap­pened and con­tin­ues to hap­pen. None of your sto­ries about your life, (about the details — about “what hap­penedâ€) however,are any­thing other than what you’ve cho­sen to believe to sup­port your pre­con­ceived notion.

Zen liv­ing: things are as they are, until they aren’t. Get­ting your shorts in a knot, or act­ing like a spoled brat, is just one more mind game.

Free­ing your mind really means free­ing your­self from your mind’s grip. Life is dif­fi­cult, and telling your­self sto­ries about how really, really bad it all is does noth­ing regard­ing deal­ing with the the actual liv­ing out of your days. If you choose to let go of the story-telling, you can sim­ply make choices, act, and eval­u­ate, then act again. Once you mind is freed to resolve what “is,†“the rest just follows.â€

4. Hap­pi­ness is not the point. Integrity, free­dom, and pres­ence is.

We are a “hap­pi­ness rules†cul­ture, and that’s odd, because vir­tu­ally no one is actu­ally happy. Peo­ple seem hell-bent on being happy “some day, when all the ducks line up, if the creek don’t rise…†Chas­ing after some ephemeral goal called hap­pi­ness keeps us buy­ing more, judg­ing every­thing as lack­ing, and blam­ing oth­ers for the dissatisfaction.

This relates to point # 3 — sto­ry­telling. If you see the moment for what it is, you also rec­og­nize that most of us live our lives just fine, moment to moment — the trou­ble comes with the sto­ries we tell our­selves. Our judge­ments about self, oth­ers, and cir­cum­stances, all of which is neu­tral, add the dynamic for our unhappiness.

Zen liv­ing: as you bring your­self, again and again, into pres­ence, you start to see that mostly there is not much going on, and pre­cious lit­tle to do, other than to be there for your life. Get­ting bent out of shape — typ­i­cally over the behav­iour of oth­ers (code for “They are not doing it the right way!†— mean­ing, your way) is quite the waste of time. Your opin­ion is just that — yours — and no one cares.

Drop the need to judge your life as lack­ing, and immerse your­self fully into the Now.

5. Take time to experience

Step­ping back from the mind’s chat­ter can be quite dis­con­cert­ing. With­out all of that dis­trac­tion, what ends up being left is sen­sa­tion. The flow of life-force. Breath. This can either be star­tling, scary, bor­ing, or interesting.

The point to briskly step­ping next to your mind is to open your­self to the end­less flow of sen­sa­tion. You sud­denly can hear, and see, and feel, and in this process of being, you come into the actual expe­ri­ence of what’s up. Now, most of the time, your mind will pop in and start judg­ing or com­plain­ing. “Here’s what you ought to be doing, feel­ing, think­ing!†And away you go from the expe­ri­ence to the men­tal games.

Zen liv­ing: use your breath to bring your­self back into your body, and then sim­ply feel and hear and see. Be at one with your­self. Have your feel­ings, expe­ri­ence your expe­ri­ences, and then… wait for it… go with the flow to the next thing.

You’ll notice a reluc­tance to fully immerse your­self into the flow and feel of life, as if feel­ing is a “bad thing.†Have another breath, and go with it. Soon, you tol­er­ance for being fully alive and fully present will grow. You, in a sence, become immersed in liv­ing, as opposed to liv­ing your life one step removed.

And remem­ber, every­thing new has the poten­tial to be scary. Do it anyway!