Being Zen

1. Embrace Life's Difficulties as Your Path to Awakening

"Our difficulties are not obstacles to the path; they are the path itself. They are opportunities to awaken."

Shift your perspective. Instead of viewing life's challenges as problems to be solved or avoided, see them as opportunities for growth and awakening. This fundamental change in orientation allows you to approach difficulties with curiosity and openness rather than resistance.

Learn from disappointments. Every setback, every moment of discomfort, and every unwanted situation can be a wake-up call. By welcoming these experiences, you create space for deeper understanding and personal transformation. Practice asking yourself:

• What can I learn from this situation?
• How is this challenge helping me grow?
• What beliefs or expectations am I holding onto that are causing me suffering?

2. Practice Awareness Through Self-Observation and Experiencing

"Experiencing transforms us because it permeates the seeming solidity of this cellular memory."

Develop self-observation skills. Practice observing yourself objectively, as if from outside. Notice your thoughts, reactions, and behavioral patterns without judgment. This awareness helps you see the components of your "substitute life" - the identities, self-images, and strategies you've developed to cope with life's challenges.

Experience the present moment. Move beyond thinking about your experience to actually feeling it. Focus on:

• Physical sensations in your body
• Sounds, sights, and smells in your environment
• The texture and quality of your emotions

By cultivating this direct experience, you can break free from the confines of your conditioned mind and connect more deeply with reality.

3. Transform Fear by Willingly Facing It

"Courage is not the absence of fear; courage is and grows out of the willingness to experience fear."

Recognize fear's pervasiveness. Fear underlies many of our actions and reactions, often in subtle ways we don't immediately recognize. It can manifest as:

• Anger
• Ambition
• Depression
• Perfectionism
• Procrastination

Practice willingness. Instead of trying to eliminate fear, cultivate the willingness to experience it fully. This means:

• Acknowledging fear when it arises
• Staying present with the physical sensations of fear
• Labeling fearful thoughts without believing them
• Breathing into the discomfort rather than running away

As you develop this willingness, you'll discover that fear loses its power over you, and you can act with courage even in its presence.

4. Work with Anger by Labeling Thoughts and Experiencing Sensations

"Experiencing is about feeling and clarifying the emotional reactivity."

Recognize anger's root. Anger often arises when life doesn't meet our expectations or requirements. It can serve as a cover for deeper emotions like hurt, grief, or fear.

Practice non-expression. Instead of suppressing or expressing anger, learn to experience it fully:

1. Label angry thoughts clearly: "Having a believed thought that..."
2. Focus on the physical sensations of anger in your body
3. Ask "What is this?" to explore the emotion with curiosity
4. Breathe into the center of your chest, allowing the sensations to be there

By working with anger in this way, you can transform its energy into clarity and resoluteness without the negative overlay.

5. Approach Pain and Suffering with Curiosity and Compassion

"Healing involves clearing the pathway to the open heart—the heart that knows only connectedness."

Distinguish between pain and suffering. Pain is an inevitable part of life, but suffering arises from our resistance to pain and our beliefs about it. Recognize that much of your suffering comes from thoughts like:

• "This shouldn't be happening"
• "I can't handle this"
• "What's wrong with me?"

Practice curiosity and compassion. When experiencing pain or suffering:

1. Ask "What is this?" to explore the sensations with openness
2. Label thoughts that arise, seeing them as conditioned responses rather than truth
3. Breathe into the heartspace, extending kindness to yourself and your experience
4. Remember that healing doesn't always mean the pain goes away, but rather that you can be with it without adding layers of suffering

By approaching your difficulties with curiosity and compassion, you open the pathway to your naturally open heart.

6. Integrate Hard Effort and Soft Willingness in Practice

"The interplay between hard and soft is the essence of practice."

Balance discipline and letting be. Recognize that both hard effort and soft willingness are essential components of practice:

Hard effort:

• Discipline to stay present
• Precision in labeling thoughts
• Persistence in facing difficulties

Soft willingness:

• Allowing experiences to be as they are
• Cultivating spaciousness and compassion
• Softening self-judgment

Practice the interplay. In your meditation and daily life:

1. Apply discipline to stay present and observe clearly
2. Simultaneously cultivate a sense of spaciousness and kindness toward your experience
3. Notice when you're becoming too rigid or too lax, and adjust accordingly

By integrating these seemingly opposite approaches, you can develop a more balanced and effective practice.

7. Cultivate Loving-Kindness to Awaken the Heart of Compassion

"Awakening loving-kindness means looking at our stuff, seeing it for what it is, greeting it with openness, meeting it without judgment, and then moving toward true healing, which is openly experiencing our natural wholeness."

Understand true loving-kindness. Recognize that loving-kindness is not about generating a special feeling, but rather:

• A sense of goodwill and benign awareness
• The capacity to be open and allowing
• A diminishing of the mind's tendency to judge

Practice the loving-kindness meditation. Regularly engage in a structured loving-kindness practice:

1. Breathe awareness into your heart center
2. Extend loving-kindness to yourself, loved ones, and all beings
3. Use phrases like:
   • "May I/you dwell in the open heart"
   • "May I/you attend to whatever clouds the heart"
   • "May I/you be awake in this moment, just as it is"
   • "May the awakened heart be extended to all beings"

By cultivating loving-kindness, you awaken your innate capacity for compassion, allowing you to meet life's challenges with an open heart and a spacious mind.

Last updated: August 20, 2024