Nothing Special: Living Zen

by Charlotte Joko Beck

  Curiosity and Obsession

  One of my students told me recently that, for him, the whole motivation for sitting was curiosity. He expected me to disagree with him and to disapprove of his practice. The truth is, I thoroughly agree. Much of our lives we are caught in our thoughts, obsessed with this or that and not truly in the present. But sometimes we become puzzled about ourselves and our obsessions: “Why am I so anxious, or depressed, or harried?” Out of our puzzlement comes curiosity and a willingness just to observe ourselves and our thoughts, to see how we make ourselves so upset. The repeating loop of thought recedes, and we become aware of the present moment. So curiosity is in a sense the heart of practice.

  If we are truly curious, we investigate without any preconceptions. We suspend our beliefs and just observe, just notice. We want to investigate ourselves, how we live our life. If we do this with intelligence, we experience life more directly and begin to see what it is. For example, we’re sitting here. Suppose that instead of being preoccupied with something or other, we turn our attention to our immediate experience. We notice what we hear. We feel our sore knees and our other bodily sensations. Eventually we lose our focus and our thoughts bubble off into one loop or another. When we realize that we’ve drifted away, we come back and pay attention again. That’s normal sitting—the usual pattern. What we’re really doing is investigating ourselves, our thoughts, our experience: we hear things, we feel things, we smell things. Our sensations trigger thoughts, and our minds are off on another loop. So we notice the loop. Our investigative focus changes slightly, and we begin to look at: “What is all this thinking?” “What is it that I do?” “What am I thinking about?” “How does it happen that I am constantly thinking about this instead of that?”

  If we notice our thinking rather than running with it, eventually our thinking calms down and we investigate the next moment. That awareness could be, “I’ve been sitting here for hours, and my whole body is beginning to hurt.” So we investigate this. What hurts? What does it really feel like? Eventually we become aware not just of our physical sensations, but of our thoughts about them as well. We notice the fact that we don’t want to be sitting here at all. We observe our rebellious thoughts: “When are they going to ring the bell so I can move?” Our noticing is a kind of curiosity, an investigation of what is. We are simply paying attention to that which is involved in our life or our sitting.

  This process can occur not just in sitting, but elsewhere. Suppose I’m at the dentist’s office to have a cavity filled. I notice my thoughts about the dentist’s work: “I really don’t like to have that needle put in my gum!” I notice the slight tension as the dentist walks into the room. As we exchange pleasantries—“Hi, how are you?”—I notice my body contracting. Then the needle arrives. I just feel it and stay with it. My dentist helps by directing, “Just keep breathing. Take a long breath….” It’s like training for natural childbirth: when we follow the breath, we don’t think about the pain. We simply are the pain.

  Or perhaps we’re at work. We’ve got our morning’s work outlined. Then the boss comes in and says, “We’ve got a deadline. Drop what you’re doing. I’ve got to get this done. I need it in an hour.” If we have a sitting practice, we immediately notice our bodily reactions, even as we begin the task. We notice that our body begins to tighten, and we have resentful thoughts. “If he had to do this himself, he wouldn’t expect it done in one hour.” We notice our thoughts and then drop them, and return to the task at hand. We settle down into it.

  We can investigate all of our life in this way. “What am I feeling? What happens to me as life does what it does?” The boss’s abrupt demands are just something that life does for me. Likewise, needing to have a tooth filled is what life does for me. I have my feelings and my thoughts about each incident. As I stay with the feelings and thoughts, I settle back into just being here, just being with things going on as they go on, just doing the next thing. At noon, the boss comes in and says, “You don’t have that done yet?” He doesn’t say, “What’s wrong with you?,” but we get the point. We feel our body tighten again. We notice our resentful thoughts about him. We take a short lunch instead of the long lunch hour we had planned. Then we rush back and go to work again.

  When we’re lucky enough to be doing work we really like to do, we notice that also. We notice that the body relaxes more. We notice that we get into the task more easily. We get absorbed, time goes by rapidly, and our thoughts are fewer because we enjoy the focus. What we like is not more important than what we don’t like, however. The longer we practice, the more the moment-to-moment flow takes over regardless of our likes and dislikes. We are aware of the situation as it flows through us and past us. We’re just doing what we’re doing; we’re aware of the flow of experience. Nothing special. More and more the flow takes over and makes for a rather good life.

  It’s not that everything becomes pleasant. We can’t anticipate what life will bring. When we get up in the morning, we don’t know that at two o’clock in the afternoon we’re going to break a leg. We never know what’s coming up; that’s part of the fun of being alive.

  Practice is nothing but that attitude of curiosity: “What’s going on here, now? What am I thinking? What am I feeling? What is life presenting to me? What am I doing with this? What is an intelligent thing to do with this? What’s an intelligent thing to do with a boss who’s already harried, unreasonable? What do I do when filling my cavity turns out to be excruciating?” Practice is about such investigation. The more we come to terms with our own personal thoughts and reactions, the more we can just be with whatever needs to be done. That’s essentially what Zen practice is about: functioning from moment to moment.

  There’s a fly in this ointment, however. The fly is that we’re not often curious about life and open to it. Instead of examining that fussy boss with interest, we get caught up in thoughts and reactions to the situation. We get stuck in obsessive mental detours, loops of thought. If we have never practiced, we may be stuck in these loops ninety-five percent of the time. If we’ve been practicing well for a number of years, we might be in such loops only five or ten percent of the time.

  With the fussy boss, our loop might be, “Who does he think he is? He thinks I’m going to get that done in an hour? That’s ridiculous!” Resistance comes up. “I’ll show him!” We may even sabotage the job that needs to be done. If we don’t sabotage the job, we may sabotage ourselves by being stuck in our thoughts and our anger. At the end of the day, we’ll go home exhausted and tell our partner how unreasonable our boss was today. “Nobody could work for him. He’s wrecking my life.” In our heated reactions, the investigative, curious mode wasn’t there. Instead of an observant curiosity, we are caught in a loop of obsession. We don’t just observe our thoughts about the boss; instead, we believe that there’s some validity in spinning off into our angry thoughts for hours on end, instead of seeing them for what they are, sensing the bodily contractions that grow out of them, and as much as we can, returning to doing something about the work problem.

  Sitting is exactly that: we’re investigating our life. But when we get lost in our self-centered trains of thought, we’re not investigating anymore. We’re thinking about how bad it all is, or we’re blaming somebody, or we’re blaming ourself. Each person has his or her own style, which is how we justify our existence. We like to let our loops grow and grow. We really enjoy them—until we begin to realize that they wreck our lives.

  People lose themselves in many different kinds of loops. For some, the loop is, “I can’t do anything until I figure it all out.” So we refuse to act until we have everything analyzed. Another will respond to the fussy boss by saying, “I’ll do the work, but I’ll do it my own way. And I won’t do it unless I can do it perfectly.” An obsessive perfectionism can be our loop. The loop can be philosophical, about having to get a complete picture of how everything fits together. This loop is about trying to make our life safe: we think that if we understand c
ompletely, we’ll have more security. Another loop is becoming obsessively busy and working all the time. A related style is doing too many things at once. Our loops are our own style, and we find out what they are when we label our thoughts. That’s why labeling thoughts is so important. We have to know where and how we like to loop; we have to know our own particular style of looping.

  As we sit, we learn how we like to fool ourselves. When we’re fooling ourselves, caught in our loop, we’re not curious but mechanical, just following a basic unconscious decision we have made earlier: “I’ve gotta be like this, and I’ve gotta do it like this.” We can’t hear any input, and we can’t see what’s really going on. There’s no true curiosity about how we’re functioning and about other possible ways to act. The loop of self-centered, obsessive thinking blocks all that. Our basic openness and curiosity about life are gone with the wind.

  Sitting is not based on hope; it’s based on not knowing, a simple openness and curiosity: “I don’t know, but I can investigate.” We all have our own particular style of failing to do this. We like to think in loops; we like our loops better than we like life. The loop is who we think we are: “I’m this kind of person.” We like those reinforcing thoughts and activities, even though they’re barren of life.

  The longer we sit and become really acquainted with ourselves, the more willing we are just to see our loops and to let them be, just to let them go. We begin to spend more time in the essential part of sitting, which is just being open and curious, just letting life alone. From the standpoint of a beginner, to sit in this way is the most boring thing in the world. When we sit, nothing’s happening except that we hear a car goes by, our left arm has a slight twitch, and we feel the air. From the standpoint of anyone attached to their own personal loop, the question naturally comes up, “What do you want to do this for? Of what importance is this?” Yet such practice is of total importance, because in that space, life takes over. Life—the natural intelligence or functioning of things—knows what to do.

  STUDENT: When I feel depressed, I like to get into a creative visualization of feeling good.

  JOKO : That’s a loop. We think that the way we are isn’t interesting—that there’s something wrong with feeling the way we do. So we substitute something “better” that we invent. If we can instead simply investigate feeling down or depressed and be interested in it, we’ll discover certain bodily sensations and certain thoughts that feed into that state. When we do that, the depression tends to disappear, and we feel no need for a visualization or fantasy of another state.

  STUDENT : Can’t investigation itself be an obsessive loop? Poring over one’s insides like a detective with a magnifying glass: “I did this, and then I did that, which caused me to do that…”

  JOKO : It’s one thing simply to observe our inner process as a fact, and another to get caught in why we do it, what’s wrong with it. If we’re trying to track it down like a detective uncovering a crime, that’s still a loop.

  STUDENT: Is there a danger in noticing the loop and following it wherever it goes? Could that process go on forever?

  JOKO : No. If we’re truly just noticing our obsessions and aren’t caught in them, they tend to fade and die. We usually pursue our loops because we really want to get back into our self-centered thinking. The minute we simply observe our thinking, that self-centered attachment is severed, and the loop loses its fuel. We don’t have to worry about endless noticing of thoughts. When we begin to sit, our obsessive thoughts or loops have a lot of energy, but that momentum dissipates as we sit for longer periods. More and more, our thoughts die down, and we are simply with our bodily sensations, with life as it is.

  I don’t want anyone simply to take my word for it. I want you to investigate for yourselves. That’s what practice is: a process of discovery for ourselves about how we function and think.

  STUDENT: Some activities seem to require pursuing and following a train of thought. For example, writing as a profession, or philosophical inquiry. These seem to depend upon the ability to sustain a “loop” or line of ideas for as long as possible.

  JOKO : That’s fine. It’s quite different, however, from obsessive, selfcentered thought. The creative function of a writer or philosopher can happen only if one is not caught in one’s anxious personal thoughts. Noticing how our own mind works, seeing our obsessive loops for what they are, can free us to use our minds more imaginatively, without being stuck.

  STUDENT: Is there a kind of thinking about oneself that’s not selfcentered?

  JOKO : Yes. We often have to think about ourselves. For example, if I develop a cavity in my tooth, I need to arrange for a trip to the dentist. That’s thinking about myself, but not necessarily in an obsessive or self-centered way.

  STUDENT : Sometimes, thinking about practice is a loop. I may develop a fantasy of how wonderful my life will be if I’m always aware of my thoughts and feelings.

  JOKO : Yes. Then we’re not simply investigating our thoughts, but adding hope or expectation. It’s no longer a curious, open investigation. As Master Rinzai said, “Place no head above your own.” That’s an extra head. With steady, careful sitting, we begin to separate out such loops and recognize them for what they are.

  STUDENT : When I am engaged in a mental task, I often get caught in a strong self-critical loop. For example, when I’m writing, it’s easy for me to interrupt the creative flow of my thoughts with critical judgments about what I’m doing. Then the whole process shortcircuits, and I get stuck.

  JOKO: Yes. How could you practice with that? STUDENT: Just notice my self-critical thoughts and keep going.

  JOKO: Right.

  STUDENT : I realize that the possibility of having my self-centered thoughts actually die down is terrifying. My fear is, maybe I wouldn’t exist at all without that fundamental attachment to self.

  JOKO : Yes. Just notice that. The more we notice that we don’t want that shift to happen, paradoxically, the more we become free to allow it. It can’t be forced. There’s nothing to force. We’re just being aware, with openness and curiosity.

  STUDENT : Some people say that too much meditation is depressing and needs to be balanced with other, happier activities, such as celebrations. What do you think about that?

  JOKO : In itself, there is nothing in life that’s good or bad. What is, is simply what is. Depression is no more than certain bodily sensations plus accompanying thoughts, both of which can be investigated. When we feel depressed, we need simply to observe our sensations and label our thoughts. If we set aside or push away the depression and try to replace it with, say, going to a party, we haven’t investigated and understood the depression. Going to a party may cover up the depression for a while, but it will be back. Covering our feelings and thoughts is just another kind of loop.

  STUDENT : One of my loops is worrying about work and financial things: “Am I going to have enough money for necessities? Can I support my family? Is my job secure?” I tend to get stuck in these anxious, worrying thoughts.

  JOKO : Right. As we investigate such obsessive thoughts, we don’t abandon them or banish them. But they slowly lose their power over us as we see what they are and feel the basic fear that’s underneath them. They just fade slowly.

  STUDENT : I realize that I think of activities as depressing or joyful in themselves and tend to forget that what we call depression and joy are just thoughts and feelings we have in reaction to things. Often, what we regard as “joyful” is just a momentary escape from what’s going on inside us. So we’re afraid to stop and let ourselves really feel.

  JOKO : That’s right. Genuine joy is being this moment, just as it is. Experiencing the moment can be feeling the contraction we call depression, or it can be feeling the contraction we call having good news. So genuine joy underlies both what we call depression and what we call elation. There’s a kind of impersonal quality, or God’seye view of things, that develops in someone who sits for a long time. I’m not talking about being cold and unf
eeling or callous. I’m not a cold person, though I have developed this impersonal quality in my life.

  STUDENT : I’ve known you for many years, and I have a sense of what you mean. In my opinion, as you have become more “impersonal,” you have become warmer, more approachable.

  JOKO : At one time, I was too scared to allow people to get close. Now, I look at what used to be very upsetting, and say, “Oh, that’s going on. Interesting.” It’s simply a matter of investigation or curiosity: “What’s happening now?” This is our life. For example, my car got smashed the other day. She wasn’t looking, and I wasn’t looking—and so we had an accident. I didn’t have any reaction to that whatsoever. I’m not saying that’s good or bad, but it certainly is easier on the adrenals. If somebody had gotten hurt, I might have had a stronger reaction, though I’m sure it would have been different than many years ago. It’s all just life, a gift for us to experience.

  Transformation

  In southern California we bandy around words describing personal growth, such as change and transformation. I doubt that you hear that kind of talk often in Kansas. Much of such talk is silly, reflecting little real understanding. “Personal growth” is often merely cosmetic change, like adding a chair to the living room. In true transformation, on the other hand, there is an implication that something genuinely new has come into being. It’s as though what was there before has disappeared, and something different has taken its place. When I hear the word transformation, I think of those line drawings that look like a vase and then suddenly switch into a face. That’s transformation.