I had just moved across the country from Rice Lake, Wisconsin, to Bellingham, Washington. Bellingham was full of hippy-wanna-bes and I wanted to be one too. I became a vegetarian. I wore long beaded earrings that I made myself. I dressed in tie-dye and batik. I wore a planet-earth harmony ball necklace. (Apparently you can buy this item at Sears. And you should, because "The harmony that comes out of this pendant relaxes and soothes ones mind.")
I desperately wanted to be mellow.
I was definitely not mellow.
I stumbled across some Zen Buddhism books in one of Bellingham's new agey bookstores. I liked the calm, smiling, exotic-looking faces on the back covers. (I grew up in a town of 700 people in the Great North Woods of Wisconsin, so it didn't take much to be exotic-looking. I thought people from Minneapolis were exotic-looking.) I liked the idea of being "Zen." Whatever that meant. It sounded like the opposite of me. The idea was soothing.
But the concepts in the books were almost impossible to grasp. They said things like, "Throwing away Zen mind is correct Zen mind," or "You see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything," or...
"Don't push the river."
Oh hell, I was totally a river-pusher. I didn't go with the flow, I tried to wrestle that damn flow the way I wanted it to go. As my step-father-in-law, who isn't Buddhist, but is a wise man nonetheless, likes to say, I go at things "like killin' snakes."
Just picture yourself with a big stick in your hand, surrounded by a rhumba of rattlesnakes (yes, really, a group of rattlesnakes is called a rhumba), and imagine the rattlesnakes start slithering toward you in a wriggling, rhythmic motion (kind of like this, but only less sexy and more threatening). Slither, slither, rattle rattle... WHACK! WHACK! WHACK-WHACK! That was pretty much my approach to life. Flailing and hacking at whatever got in my way.
And it actually worked fairly well. I was very productive. I held down a full time job (whack! whack!) while attending college at night (whack! whack-whack!).
Except for my racing mind and lack of quality sleep, I was doing just fine.
I kept reading about Zen Buddhism and meditation and Taoism. I wasn't able to incorporate much of what I read into my fast-paced life, but it made me feel better just to learn about people who seemed so at peace. It gave me something to aspire to. Maybe someday I'd figure it out.
Now, some twenty years later, I still don't know anyone who would describe me as mellow. It's very unlikely that I will ever be the person behind that serene gaze of a Zen master. But I am doing a little bit better at not pushing the river.
My river is not the lazy, reflective, pale blue stream, winding carefree through the peaceful valley that I imagined when I read those books. My river moves quickly and occasionally plummets into a jumble of whitewater that sends me reeling. Lots of things can get that water churning - my kids, my husband, work, my own perfectionism, and even hormones.
But now, thanks to years of failed attempts, I understand there's no point in trying to paddle back upstream. I just need to avoid the biggest rocks, stay out of those massive, boat-flipping waves, and have faith that in the end, the river will carry me back out the other side.
Although, now that I've improved my paddling skills, I find myself wondering if the river really needs to go quite so fast. And isn't it possible that there are forks in the river that could allow me to avoid a few of those rapids altogether?
I just dug out one of my old Zen books. I still love the peaceful, smiling face on the back cover. I flipped through and found this:
"Do not even expect to make progress. Just to be sincere and make our full effort in each moment is enough."
Ooh. I like that. I think it's worth another read. I wonder if Sears has any harmony balls in stock...
"Don't push the river."
Oh hell, I was totally a river-pusher. I didn't go with the flow, I tried to wrestle that damn flow the way I wanted it to go. As my step-father-in-law, who isn't Buddhist, but is a wise man nonetheless, likes to say, I go at things "like killin' snakes."
Just picture yourself with a big stick in your hand, surrounded by a rhumba of rattlesnakes (yes, really, a group of rattlesnakes is called a rhumba), and imagine the rattlesnakes start slithering toward you in a wriggling, rhythmic motion (kind of like this, but only less sexy and more threatening). Slither, slither, rattle rattle... WHACK! WHACK! WHACK-WHACK! That was pretty much my approach to life. Flailing and hacking at whatever got in my way.
And it actually worked fairly well. I was very productive. I held down a full time job (whack! whack!) while attending college at night (whack! whack-whack!).
Except for my racing mind and lack of quality sleep, I was doing just fine.
I kept reading about Zen Buddhism and meditation and Taoism. I wasn't able to incorporate much of what I read into my fast-paced life, but it made me feel better just to learn about people who seemed so at peace. It gave me something to aspire to. Maybe someday I'd figure it out.
Now, some twenty years later, I still don't know anyone who would describe me as mellow. It's very unlikely that I will ever be the person behind that serene gaze of a Zen master. But I am doing a little bit better at not pushing the river.
My river is not the lazy, reflective, pale blue stream, winding carefree through the peaceful valley that I imagined when I read those books. My river moves quickly and occasionally plummets into a jumble of whitewater that sends me reeling. Lots of things can get that water churning - my kids, my husband, work, my own perfectionism, and even hormones.
But now, thanks to years of failed attempts, I understand there's no point in trying to paddle back upstream. I just need to avoid the biggest rocks, stay out of those massive, boat-flipping waves, and have faith that in the end, the river will carry me back out the other side.
Although, now that I've improved my paddling skills, I find myself wondering if the river really needs to go quite so fast. And isn't it possible that there are forks in the river that could allow me to avoid a few of those rapids altogether?
I just dug out one of my old Zen books. I still love the peaceful, smiling face on the back cover. I flipped through and found this:
"Do not even expect to make progress. Just to be sincere and make our full effort in each moment is enough."
Ooh. I like that. I think it's worth another read. I wonder if Sears has any harmony balls in stock...
