Nothing Special: Living Zen

by Charlotte Joko Beck

  Practice is about dealing with suffering. It’s not that the suffering is important or valuable in itself, but that suffering is our teacher. It’s the other side of life, and until we can see all of life, there’s not going to be any joy. To be honest, sesshin is controlled suffering. We get a chance to face our suffering in a practice situation. As we sit, all the traditional attributes of a good Zen student come under fire: endurance, humility, patience, compassion. These things sound great in books, but they’re not so attractive when we’re hurting. That’s why sesshin ought not to be easy: we need to learn to be with our suffering and still act appropriately. When we learn to be with our experience, whatever it is, we are more aware of the joy that is our life. Sesshin is a good chance to learn this lesson. When we’re prepared to practice, suffering can be a fortunate thing. None of us wants to recognize this fact. I certainly try to avoid suffering; there are lots of things I don’t want happening in my life. Still, if we can’t learn to be our experience even when it hurts, we’ll never know joy. Joy is being the circumstances of our life just as they are. If someone’s been unfair to us, that’s it. If someone’s telling lies about us, that’s it also.

  The material wealth of this country in some ways makes it more difficult for us to experience the basic joy that we are. Travelers to India sometimes report that along with the enormous poverty, there is an extraordinary joy. Faced with life and death all the time, the people have learned something that is hard for most of us: they have learned to appreciate each moment. We don’t do very well with that. Our very prosperity—all of the things we take for granted and all of the things we want more of—is in a way a barrier. There are other barriers, more basic ones. But our wealth is certainly part of the problem.

  In practice, we return over and over again to perception, to just sitting. Practice is just hearing, just seeing, just feeling. This is what Christians call the face of God: simply taking in

  this world as it manifests. We feel our body; we hear the cars and birds. That’s all there is. But we are unwilling to stay in that space for more than a few seconds. We go shooting off, remembering what happened to us last week or thinking about what’s going to happen next week. We obsess about persons that we’re having trouble with or about our work or whatever. There’s nothing wrong with these ideas popping up, but if we get stuck in them, we’re into the world of evaluation from our self-centered viewpoint. Most of us spend most of our lives in this viewpoint.

  It’s natural to think, “If I didn’t have such a difficult partner (or difficult roommate or difficult something else), then I know my life would be much calmer. I would be much better able to appreciate my life.” That might be true for a short time. Life would feel better for a time, of course. But such comfort is not as valuable as facing what upsets us, because it’s this very upset (our tendency to get attached to our dramas, to get involved in them and get our mind racing and our emotions fired up) that is the barrier. There is no real joy in such a life, no joy at all. So we run from difficulties; we try to eliminate something—our partner, our roommate, our whatever—so that we can find a perfect place where nothing can upset us. Does anybody have a place like that? Where could it be? What could even approximate it? Years ago I used to allow myself ten minutes a day to daydream about a tropical island, and every day I would furnish my little hut. My fantasy life got better and better. Finally, I had all of the conveniences. Wonderful food just showed up, and there was the gentle ocean and a lagoon, just right for swimming, next to the hut. It’s fine to daydream consciously if there is a time limit. But my dream couldn’t exist, except in my mind. There is no place on earth where we can be free of ourselves. If we were sitting in a cave meditating, we’d still be thinking about something: “How noble of me it is to sit in this cave!” And after a while: “What excuse can I invent to get out of here and not look bad?” If we stop ourselves and find out what we’re really feeling or thinking, we’ll notice— even if we’re working hard—a thin veil of self-concern over our activity. Enlightenment is simply not doing this. Enlightenment is simply doing what we’re doing totally, responding to things as they come up. The modern term is “being in the flow.” Joy is just this: something comes up; I perceive it. Something is needed, and I do it, and then the next thing, and the next. I take some time out for a walk or to talk to my friends. There is no problem in a life lived in this way. The joy would never stop, unless I interrupt it with evaluation: reacting to events as problems, blaming, rejecting, straining. “I don’t want to do that.” When what comes up doesn’t fit my idea of what I want to do, I have a problem. If the activity is one I enjoy, I may also drain it of joy. Can you think of examples?

  STUDENT: I try to be perfect at it.

  STUDENT: I think that doing it makes me important.

  STUDENT: I stop paying attention to it and just think about getting it done.

  STUDENT: I start to compare myself with others and get competitive.

  STUDENT: I worry about whether I’m doing it right.

  STUDENT: I start to worry that it will come to an end.

  JOKO : Good. And below the conscious level, there is our deep-seated conditioning, the unconscious motives that drive us to do what we do. All that stuff floats up in time. Even when we have an activity that we like in life, even if we have a partner whom we basically like, the nature of being human is to keep trying to fix things, which takes away the joy. Any self-centered evaluation of a situation will obscure the pure perception which is joy itself. When such thoughts arise, we just see the thoughts and let them go, see the thoughts and let them go, see the thoughts and let them go. We return to the experience of whatever’s going on. That is what brings joy into view.

  Good sitting doesn’t mean that we suddenly have some clear space in which nothing’s happening. That may happen occasionally, but it’s not important. What is necessary for good sitting is that more and more we are willing to be aware of whatever is happening. We’re willing to be aware that, “Yes, I do nothing but think about Tahiti. Isn’t that interesting.” Or “I broke up with my boyfriend six months ago and what am I doing? All of my thoughts are stuck there. How interesting!” Emotions build out of this kind of thinking—depression, worry, anxiety—and we’re stuck in our obsessions. Where’s the joy?

  For most of us, to stay in the present moment and to keep reminding ourselves that that’s what we’re here to do, is suffering. We have to be willing to do this practice not just when we’re sitting, but for the rest of our lives. If we do, then we increase the percentage of our lives in which we experience joy. In order to do this, we have to pay a price, however. Some people will pay it; some people won’t. People sometimes imagine that I can produce joy for them; they think I have some magic. But I can’t do anything for others except to tell them what to do. I can’t do it for anybody except myself. That’s why, if practice is made too easy and there’s no price to be paid, we don’t ever turn the key in the lock to that door. If we keep running in our life from everything that displeases us, the key never turns.

  We should not push ourselves excessively. Depending on our capacity, we may need to back off, to withdraw. But if we withdraw, we can be sure that our problems stay right with us. When we “run away” from our problems, the problems stay right with us. They like us, and they’ll stay right with us until we pay some real attention to them. We say we want to be one with the world, when what we really want is for the world to please us. If we are to be “one with the world,” we must go through years of meticulous practice, of hacking away. There is no shortcut, no way to a life of relative ease and joy, without paying a price. We must see that we get embroiled in our personal stuff, just notice it, and return to this world of pure perception, which doesn’t interest us at all, for the most part. Suzuki Roshi once said, “From the ordinary point of view, to be enlightened would seem pretty dull.” There’s no drama in it whatsoever; there’s just simply being here.

  We differ in our ability to be with our pe
rception. But we all have the capacity. It may manifest at a slightly different rate, but we all have the capacity. Since we’re human, we can be awake, and we can always increase the amount of time we are awake. When we’re awake, the moment transforms: it begins to feel good; it gives us power to do the next thing. This capacity can always increase. We must be aware of what we are this second. If we’re angry, we have to know this. We have to feel it. We have to see what thoughts are involved. If we’re bored, this is definitely something to investigate. If we’re discouraged, we need to notice this. If we’re caught up in judgment or self-righteousness, we need to notice this. If we don’t see these things, they rule the roost.

  To sum up: as we sit, two activities are occurring: One is pure perception, just sitting here. The content of that perception can be anything. The other activity is evaluation: jumping out of pure perception into our self-centered judgments about everything. In sitting, we deal with this tension, this strain, and this repetitive thinking. We have to deal with our residual conditioning; it’s the only way to joy. We deal with what’s happening right here, right now.

  Chaos and Wonder

  As I talk with students, I hear many things about why they sit: “I want to know myself better.” “I want my life to be more integrated.” “I want to be healthier.” “I want to know the universe.” “I want to know what life is.” “I’m lonely.” “I want a relationship.” “I want my relationship to go better.” There are endless variations on these and other motivations for practice. They are all absolutely fine; there’s nothing wrong with them. But if we think that the point of sitting is to accomplish these things, then we misunderstand what we are doing. It’s true, we have to begin to know ourselves and our emotions and how they work. We need to sense the relationship of our emotions to our physical health. We have to look at our lack of integration and all that this lack implies. Sitting touches every aspect of our lives; yet when we forget one thing, we have forgotten everything. Without it, nothing else works. It’s hard to give it a name. We might call it wonder. When we forget the wonder of that which we encounter, then we’re in trouble; our lives don’t work.

  It’s true that through our practice, we need to make good contact with the things I’ve mentioned above: emotions, tension, health—these and other factors. Until we have become used to making these connections, the wonder doesn’t appear. Our connection does not have to be complete, but only when we’re not fussing around with all of these factors do we see the wonder. For example: if I am with someone who simply irritates me, I have forgotten the wonder of the person. Another example: the wonder of doing a job that I don’t want to do. Yesterday, I decided to clean the space under the sink. That’s one job we tend to forget. Yet there was wonder in that, too: just wondering at the little bits of dirt and other stuff I found.

  The wonder isn’t something else, different from what we do. We think of wonder as an ecstatic state, and wonder can be ecstatic. Driving across the Rockies, viewing the Grand Canyon—such scenes are so spectacular that for a moment we see the wonder in them. Such experiences may have a strong emotional dimension. But wonder isn’t always emotional, nor could we spend all of our time in such an emotional state.

  We may suppose that wonder is found only in certain special activities. “Maybe artists and musicians find it easy to see the wonder. But I’m an accountant. Where’s the wonder in that?” Even if artists and musicians do contact the wonder in their specific areas, they may not see it elsewhere. It might seem, for example, that physicists and other scientists are far from the wonder of life. Yet I’ve been around physicists a lot, and I have discovered that it’s very important to physicists that a solution be elegant. That’s an interesting word to pop up in the middle of a lot of mathematics and computers. I once asked a physicist why he used the word. He said simply, “Any good solution has to be elegant.” When I asked him what that meant, he said that elegance meant stripping down to the essence so that one doesn’t have a lot of extras. There is wonder in that. The solution may not even be true; physicists deal in theory. In a sense, no formula is true. There’s nothing “true” about any relationship, either. But at this moment, a relationship can be—just the wonder. If we don’t realize this, we don’t realize our practice.

  Practice isn’t simply being integrated or being healthy or being a good person, though all of these things are part of practice. Practice is about the wonder. If you want to check your own practice, the next time something comes up in your life that you can’t stand, ask yourself, “Where’s the wonder here?” That’s what increases as we practice. We gain ability to see the wonder of life no matter what it is and regardless of whether we like it or don’t like it. For example, when we approach a relationship in this way, we can say, “I love you for what you are and I love you for what you are not.” Instead of faultfinding—“You talk too much. You never talk. You leave your clothes everywhere. You never clean off the kitchen counter. You pick on me all the time”—the wonder shines through. “I love you for what you are, and I love you for what you are not.”

  How do we know if our practice is a real practice? Only by one thing: more and more, we just see the wonder. What is the wonder? I don’t know. We can’t know such things through thinking. But we always know it when it’s there.

  Sometimes I can’t see the wonder at all, though I see it much more than I did five years ago. A real practice moves us along a continuum toward more and more awareness of the wonder. I don’t mean being in some blissful state; it may be just the wonder of seeing a person we don’t like. “How wonderful—she’s just as she is!” Or we may see it in someone who has a serious illness. Such a person may have such a powerful presence that it lights up the whole space around them.

  As you go through your day, through your little upsets and difficulties, ask yourself, “Where is the wonder?” It’s always there. Wonder is the nature of life itself. If we don’t feel it, we just keep doing our practice; we can’t force ourselves to feel it. We can only work with the barrier we are facing. The barrier is created by ourselves; it’s not caused by what has happened to us. That’s part of the wonder, too. If you know what I’m talking about, fine. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, that’s also fine. Both are part of the wonder: to know or not to know; either way, it’s all fine.

  STUDENT: I’ve been thinking a lot about the conflict with Iraq. I can’t see any wonder in that at all.

  STUDENT : I can’t help but feel that the conflict is horrible. Under that feeling, I feel fear. We don’t want to see the wonder because we’re stuck in the fear.

  JOKO: Yes, that’s generally true.

  STUDENT : When I think of the conflict, I sense some wonder in the prospects of greater world unification.

  JOKO: Yes. As a person, I look at the conflict with horror. But the chaos is itself interesting. In the discipline of physics, there is a relatively new field called chaos theory. The war is producing chaos. With the chaos comes new possibilities. Everything is being shaken up, and from now on, the whole Middle East is going to be different. Our relationships to everybody involved are going to be different. Their relationships to everything are going to be different. We can’t see the order in the chaos because we’re human. It’s not necessarily bad; even in horror there is wonder. Wonder is that which is happening. And we can’t judge or assess that. Of course, if I could prevent the killing, I would. None of it makes sense; it’s just chaos, and yet the chaos is not chaos—it’s wonder. From chaos comes new order, which in turn becomes chaos. That’s what life is. Peace for us is being willing to be with the chaos. That doesn’t mean we don’t take action. But even our action is part of the chaos. We always have two points of view: our personal point of view and that which develops through sitting, which is the wonder. For example: it’s terrible that so many millions of people were killed in the last war; yet from the point of view of the welfare of the earth, fewer people are better. The earth has too many people already. If I’m one of the
people who was killed or if someone I know was killed, of course to me personally it was a disaster. Yet life on earth cannot be kept in a fixed position. Saddam Hussein is the next piece on the chessboard; as he moves, everybody moves and there’s going to be chaos. Is that good or bad? Neither. It’s just what it is.

  STUDENT: It’s like a cancer cell: we want to reduce the cancer cell because it’s trying to harm the whole body.

  JOKO: But the cancer cell doesn’t view it that way. It’s just doing what it’s doing.

  STUDENT: We want to take steps to do something about the cancer; yet at a certain point we can also realize it is wonder.

  JOKO : We can be fighting the cancer, doing everything we can to survive, and at the same time we can sense the wonder of this process that we are. If I had cancer, I’d fight it right down the line. I’m a fighter. At the same time, the wonder is always present.

  STUDENT: It seems as though the last thing I want to see is the wonder.

  JOKO : You’re right. The last thing we want to see is the wonder because it’s humbling; we always feel insulted to some degree. Everything in life is the wonder, but since life as it is almost never suits us, we can’t see the wonder. Then we puzzle over why we’re so miserable. What we’re banishing from our life is what we truly want and need.