Marc Lesser's Blog, page 12

The Power of Shaping Your Days

Adapted from Less: Accomplishing More by Doing Less.

When my two children were in elementary school, a weekly day of doing less was an important part of our family ritual. We borrowed some ideas from the Jewish Sabbath as well as Buddhist Day of Mindfulness practices. At the heart of our day, we had three simple rules that we applied from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday evening:

Rule #1: There was no spending money.
Rule #2: There was no watching television.
Rule #3: We did something together as a family.

These three guidelines produced significant results in the quality of those twenty-four hours. What a relief to not buy anything, not have the television on, and spend time simply enjoying each other’s presence. My wife and I talked more with our two children; we read books, told stories, played games, went for walks, and shared meals. The biggest benefit of this structured break was that, for a day, the pace of our lives slowed down and our family connections increased.

One of my favorite parts of this ritual was the formal ending. We observed the Jewish tradition of looking for the first three stars to become visible on Saturday evening, signaling that Sabbath was over. It was fun and exciting for the four of us to stand on our deck together, seeing who could find the three stars as the sun faded and nighttime slowly emerged. Of course, since we live in Marin County, dense fog sometimes forced us to use our imaginations.

Instituting rest and simplicity is not a magic wand for perfection. There were occasional disagreements, grumpiness, and boredom. But our imperfections often emerge as the most endearing parts of ourselves, and those “Sabbath” days stand out as important building blocks, and are great memories, for our still-growing family.

In the midst of covid and the intensity of our lives, these guidelines and rituals might feel quaint, as though from another age. I feel a bit of that myself. And I feel pulled to return to some simple rituals that revolve around doing less, and focusing more on the quality of time with others, as well as connecting with the rhythms of the natural world.

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Why Must It Be This Way?

A great question for leaders and for the practice of mindful leadership is: Why must it be this way?

One of the earliest examples of this question dates back to 6th century China. A student, coming upon a crow eating a dead frog, asked Dongshan, a renowned Zen teacher of the time,

“Why must it be this way?”

To which Dongshan responds: “It’s for your benefit, and you caused it.”

Now, that’s not the answer we might expect. But can we learn from and work with that response?

The image of the crow eating the frog may dominate our thoughts and perhaps even conjure up the pain and frustration that we are experiencing in our own lives. We may ask ourselves why our relationships, whether at work or outside of work, are so challenging; why so many of us are so divided on key issues; why we aren’t caring for our planet; how we can hope to thrive with so much uncertainty.

Personally, the question leads me to think about how things might be different; how I might benefit from everything around me, from being alive, from the wonderful things that happen in life, as well as the challenging and painful things.

Dongshan’s words, “It’s for your benefit,” seem almost like a cruel joke but I believe he was referring to the importance of perspective. Stepping back, while our world is filled with pain and challenges, it’s also filled with amazing beauty, loving hearts, and pure goodness, all mixed together in an amazing and mysterious way. The frustrating and the painful is blended with all that is beautiful and moving…and it’s all for our benefit.

If this is the case – if all the good and bad around you really is for your benefit – consider for a moment how that might change the way you think about yourself, your work, your relationships, and your world. It’s easy to feel that the world is somehow operating against us but if we play with the idea that everything that we experience is provided for our benefit, that can help us open to possibility and a felt sense of our own power and agency.

The second part of Dongshan’s response, “and you caused it,” suggests that we are radically responsible for what happens to our world, and for how we interpret events and conduct our relationships. Sure, we’re all responsible for our actions, and to some degree for the insanity of our politics and the demise of the health of our planet. However, saying “you caused it” doesn’t have to mean that it’s your personal fault. It means we must all take responsibility for living the best life that we can, and to help others in any and every way we can.

With this in mind, let’s close with a poem from Sheenagh Pugh, a British poet and novelist:

Sometimes

Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.
A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man, decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.
Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss, sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

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Cutting Through Frustration

MarcLesser · Frustration

Gun violence. Climate change. COVID. Politics. Just some of the events and situations that give us all cause to be frustrated. And that’s not to mention things that are going on in our work and social lives that we don’t like and can’t control.

The fact is, people and events can get complicated. Really complicated. Yet all we want is for things to be simple.

I was just speaking with a doctor friend of mine who told me that several key nurses on his team had resigned, right when some doctors on the team were off sick with COVID. All this happening at a time when patients need their medical services more than ever.

When faced with the complexities that life and other people throw at us, how can we find our ground and a sense of wellbeing without stressing or burning out through sheer frustration?

Well, the good thing is that we can actually shift our relationship with frustration, if we work at it.

Homer Simpson, who’s a terrific mindfulness and leadership expert, shone a light on a possible solution when he gave some advice to his daughter Lisa, after she told him things weren’t going so well at work. Homer said:

“Lisa, if you don’t like your job, you don’t go on strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That’s the American way.”

That’s an extreme (and amusing) example of taking control over what frustration can do to us. The choice we often have when it comes to work-related frustrations is either to give up or put up with constant stress and anxiety when faced with challenges and difficulties.

More related insight into how to work effectively with people and events that frustrate us comes from Shunryu Suzuki, the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center. He suggests that:

“To appreciate things and people, our minds need to be calm and clear.”

Zen practice and mindfulness practice both start with the inspiration and aspiration that we can use our imaginations and set intentions for working and living with a calm and clear mind – even when we’re deep in the midst of the most challenging, painful, seemingly impossible and totally frustrating situations.

While we can’t control other people or events, we can influence and be influenced by others. And while we can’t control our minds, we can develop them and aspire for them to be clear and calm even when they aren’t.

It’s this aspiration, and practice, that has the power to change everything.

You can start exploring this by considering what would happen if you created some space between a frustrating person or event and your interpretation of that person or event.

Here’s a poem by Tony Hoagland that can cut through frustration:

The Word

Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,

between “green thread”
and “broccoli” you find
that you have penciled “sunlight.”

Resting on the page, the word
is as beautiful, it touches you
as if you had a friend

and sunlight were a present
he had sent you from some place distant
as this morning — to cheer you up,

and to remind you that,
among your duties, pleasure
is a thing,

that also needs accomplishing
Do you remember?
that time and light are kinds

of love, and love
is no less practical
than a coffee grinder

or a safe spare tire?
Tomorrow you may be utterly
without a clue

but today you get a telegram,
from the heart in exile
proclaiming that the kingdom

still exists,
the king and queen alive,
still speaking to their children,

–to any one among them
who can find the time,
to sit out in the sun and listen.

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Surprise Yourself

MarcLesser · Surprise Yourself

 

Why is it that we seem to remember events that surprise us more than others?

I’m surprised by nearly everything in my life right now. These surprises include that I’m a grandfather, that I have two grown children, that I’m a Zen teacher, and that I love teaching as well as speaking to large groups. Growing up as a somewhat sheltered and not very aware child in suburban New Jersey, I never would have predicted that my life would unfold this way.

It really is the surprising things in life that prove to be the most memorable. Take prose, poetry, humor or language that involves some form of a surprise. The unexpectedness delights us and makes these works unforgettable, like this Groucho Marx joke:

“Outside of dog, a book is man’s best friend.
Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”

Or these lines from a poem by Tony Hoagland:

“Do you remember
that time and light
are kinds of love.
And love is no less practical
than a safe spare tire
Or a coffee grinder.”

Or these haiku by Kabayashi Issa (Hass translations)

Don’t worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually.

The snow is melting
and the village is flooded
with children.

Goes out,
comes back—
the love life of a cat.

The Zen tradition emphasizes learning, changing, and growing through surprise. This is true of many Zen stories, including the foundational story of Zen. It’s based in the 6th Century, and features Bodhidharma, who’s credited as being the first Zen ancestor to visit the Emperor of China. In the story, the Emperor asks Bodhidharma:

“What is the highest meaning of the holy truths?”

Bodhidharma responds, “Empty. Without holiness.”

This was not what the Emperor was expecting to hear.

So, the Emperor then asks, “Who are you, or who is this person in front of me?”

Bodhidharma responds, “I don’t know.”

Again, a most unlikely response, and one which has now been handed down the generations for 1,500 years. Unorthodox answers like these, and going against the grain of convention sets the tone for Zen.

Shunryu Suzuki knew the power of surprise when he said: “The Secret of Zen is just two words: Not Always So.” Apparently, in his native language, he was thinking of two words. But it was perfect – and surprising – that this “secret” was actually three words long, and that its meaning was mirrored in those words.

The take away from this is that whatever we think is so, is not always so. The world is not what we think. And when we let go of our usual expectations, everything in our lives is fresh and surprising.

Why not take a moment now to think about what has surprised you today? Has anything unexpected happened? There’s an exercise you can do. Simply write down or type out this prompt:

What surprises me about my life right now is…

Then give yourself twelve minutes to write down an answer to the prompt. See what happens. It’s a good use of a short amount of time. It will give you the chance to see yourself and the world through the lens of surprise, something which can be uplifting, informative – and surprising!

Here is a poem by Robert Bly about seeing the world through the lens of surprise.

Things to Think

Think in ways you’ve never thought before
If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message
Larger than anything you’ve ever heard,
Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.
Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,
Maybe wounded and deranged: or think that a moose
Has risen out of the lake, and he’s carrying on his antlers
A child of your own whom you’ve never seen.
When someone knocks on the door, think that he’s about
To give you something large: tell you you’re forgiven,
Or that it’s not necessary to work all the time, or that it’s
Been decided that if you lie down no one will die.

The post Surprise Yourself appeared first on Marc Lesser.

The World Is Its Own Magic

MarcLesser · The World Is Its Own Magic

One of my favorite quotes is from the Vietnamese Zen teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh:

“The real miracle isn’t to walk on water.
The real miracle is to walk right here on Earth.”

Thich Nhat Hanh died recently, leaving a legacy of what he called “engaged Buddhism.” That’s the practice of seeing reality, keeping our hearts open, and helping to heal and better our world.

This practice, the miracle – “to walk right here on Earth” – is central to work, leadership, and all parts of our lives. It takes practice to keep coming back to this moment, this place, and the people who are right in front of us, without being distracted by our phones, social media, and our relentless to-do lists.

Last week, I led an in-person mindful leadership workshop for a group of 50 leaders in the healthcare industry. They’d all traveled to San Francisco from across the U.S. for a company retreat. As I was preparing to lead a morning session, there was a good deal of buzz in the room about a magic show they’d all attended the night before, called The Magic Patio.

When I first heard about this magic event, it sounded really interesting. Then I began feeling a bit nervous and daunted with the idea of my mindfulness session following a magic show. Mindful leadership seemed like a pretty dull topic in comparison. What could I do to engage them?

I surprised myself when I stood up in front of the group at the start of the session and said:

“I’m a magician too.”

I then shared that Thich Nhat Hanh quote about the real miracle of being able to walk on Earth.

As I did so, I felt deeply the magic of just being present and alive in that room with a group of curious and open-minded business leaders.

During the workshop, I addressed the challenge of busyness and how busy we’ve all become, especially in the 24/7 “always-on” business environment.

I suggested to the group an alternative to this constant busyness which entailed practicing being more:

Focused on what they were doing in that moment and letting go of ruminating about the past and worrying about the future

Wholeheartedly Engaged with what matters most to them

Spacious, by exploring what it feels like to be satisfied with that they’ve achieved and not doing anything extra

This led me to share another of my favorite quotes, this one by Shunryu Suzuki, from Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind, where he says:

“The world is its own magic.”

I asked the attendees at the mindful leadership workshop to focus on the magic of being in that room and being alive at that moment. It turned out to be an amazing and magical session in its own right.

You too can feel and truly appreciate the magic of being here, alive, right now, if you’re more focused, engaged and spacious. To help convey just what a miracle it is to be walking here on Earth right now, I’d like to share with you this beautiful poem by Mary Oliver:

When I am Among the Trees

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.

The post The World Is Its Own Magic appeared first on Marc Lesser.

We Are Ordinary and Holy

MarcLesser · We Are Ordinary and Holy

I find it challenging to go about my ordinary days, my ordinary routines, my ordinary life seeing the images of death and destruction in Ukraine. I want to not turn away, and at the same time not be consumed or hardened by the events of the world. I wonder how to not to turn away, to find some optimism, and a sense of meaning and depth.

In Not Always So, a collection of talks by Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki he mentions that there is a Japanese expression, a tamban-kan, as “a person who carries a board on his shoulder.” This is someone who understands things from a limited perspective, a person who holds tightly to a particular view. He is suggesting that you are such a person when you think you are only an ordinary human. When you remove the board you carry on your shoulder you can see, feel, and experience that you are also holy, sacred, connected to the cosmos, with vast abilities, including the ability to shape your reality.

You may think that you are an ordinary human being, with ordinary work, ordinary problems and possibilities, and an ordinary life. And this is true. We are all ordinary. We are all born, we work, we love, we struggle, get up, fall down, and we die.

More difficult to understand and experience is that you are anything but ordinary. You are not merely you. You are the result of an event from more than 13 billion years ago known as the Big Bang, followed by a most mysterious coalescing of matter and energy. Here on this tiny planet called Earth, in the midst of billions of stars and planets, we humans are the result of molecules forming complex structures beginning 3.8 billion years ago. We may not always experience it, or believe it, but we are a most remarkable work in progress.

Shunryu Suzuki goes on to say that during meditation practice you are both independent from everything and related, both, at the same time. “You are not just you. You are the whole world and the whole cosmos…when you sit you are not the same being as you are before you sit.”

As ordinary human beings we plan, assess, measure, love, hate, succeed, and fail. We can be confused, lie, hurt each other, even betray others. Within our organizations and beyond we are accountable for our actions and we hold others accountable for their actions. This is an essential part of living together, of working together, creating, innovating, and solving problems together.

As sacred, holy beings, we have the profound ability to literally feel the feelings of others. A friend was walking toward me yesterday and her foot missed the curb and she stumbled. My body ached from the pain of her stumble. We have the potential to misunderstand each other and destroy each other, or to be caring and curious, and see from other’s perspectives. We can help, comfort, and heal each other.

Experiencing ourselves as ordinary and holy is one way to not get caught by either being consumed by the world or turning away from the world. It’s a way of letting our heart’s break open, and remaining cautiously optimistic.

Here is a poem that also cuts through the duality of ordinary and holy.

The Way It Is, by Lynn Ungar

One morning you might wake up
to realize that the knot in your stomach
had loosened itself and slipped away,
and that the pit of unfulfilled longing in your heart
had gradually, and without your really noticing,
been filled in—patched like a pothole, not quite
the same as it was, but good enough.
And in that moment it might occur to you
that your life, though not the way
you planned it, and maybe not even entirely
the way you wanted it, is nonetheless—
persistently, abundantly, miraculously—
exactly the way it is.

The post We Are Ordinary and Holy appeared first on Marc Lesser.

Five Ways to Read

MarcLesser · Five Ways to Read

I love to read. Reading is a great and surprising learning affair. It was the 13th century Zen teacher Dogen, who taught that to “Study The Way” is to “study yourself and go beyond yourself.” Reading, for me, is a concrete practice and way of learning more about myself and to expand my world, open my mind and heart to new ways of seeing, thinking, and living.

Many years ago, when I was CEO of Brush Dance, a greeting card and calendar company I founded, one of my regular activities was reading to find quotes. We were always searching for new, compelling, inspirational quotes to be published as greeting cards, calendars, or journals – quotes that would be useful, memorable, and surprising. A few of our best-selling quotes were:​

– If you think you are too small to be effective, you’ve never been in bed with a mosquito.
– Life is too short to wear tight shoes.
– The greatest gift you can give someone is your presence. (Thich Nhat Hanh License)
– When you come to a fork in the road, take it! (Yogi Berra License)
– Wherever you go, there you are. Unfortunately your luggage isn’t always like this.

I remember being surprised at first when I discovered that when I was reading to find quotes, I was reading in a completely and uniquely different way, and had a very different experience than reading at other times. I wasn’t reading for context or for understanding. I was narrowing my perspective, just focusing on finding quotes. That was an interesting discovery, that I could read with varying mindsets.

I’ve noticed now that there are several ways, several approaches to reading. I’ve started experimenting with the various ways I read and find it helpful to bring some awareness to the distinctions and possibilities. It’s possible, and useful to read with a variety of approaches and that each has its own value:

Reading for insights: Similar to my search for quotes, you can read looking for insights. This way of reading narrows and focuses your vision, and allows you to take specific, sometimes actionable practices from your reading.

For example, in Atomic Habits by James Clear he has a section called: Forget About Goals, Focus on Systems Instead. “If you’re a musician, your goal might be to play a new piece. Your system is how often you practice…your method for receiving feedback from your instructor.”

Reading for knowledge: You can read to increase your knowledge and understanding, about history, or nature, economics, or about a variety of subjects.

In the opening of Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari he tells us, “About 3.8 billion years ago, on a planet called Earth, certain molecules combined to form particularly large and intricate structures called organisms. The story of organisms is called biology.”

Reading as spiritual practice: This is reading from a sense of curiosity and not knowing. Ask yourself, what is really being said here? What am I understanding and not understanding? Try aspiring to let words and ideas wash through you, without holding on too tightly. Much like listening to a dharma talk or spiritual talk, it’s not so much about the content, as about your feelings, intuition, and your heart.

Here’s an example, from Not Always So, by Shunryu Suzuki: “If you have even the smallest understanding of reality, your way of thinking will change completely, and the problems you create will not be problems any more.”

Reading to meet the author: This type of reading involves being curious about the voice of the author. It means noticing the words, and what is underneath the words. Yuval Noah Harari’s voice in Sapiens is uniquely different then Jane Hirshfield’s voice in Nine Gates and both are quite different from George Saunders’ voice in A Swim in a Pond in the Rain.

From Nine Gates, Entering The Mind Of Poetry, by Jane Hirshfield: “One breath taken completely; one poem fully written, fully read – in such a moment, anything can happen.”

Just Read!: And of course, sometimes, just keep it simple. Just read, enjoy, laugh, cry, and learn. Without any agenda, no reason, nothing to gain. And see what happens.

I’m sure there are many other ways to read as well. These are just a few that I’ve been noticing about my own reading these days.

Explore different ways, different mindsets in reading.

How does reading with different approaches support you to know more about yourself and to expand your world, to go beyond yourself?

Some books I’m enjoying right now:

Trusting The Gold, by Tara Brach
Not Always So, by Shunryu Suzuki
Nine Gates, by Jane Hirschfield
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, by George Saunders
Eyes of Compassion: Learning From Thich Nhat Hanh, by Jim Forest

The post Five Ways to Read appeared first on Marc Lesser.

Doing the Impossible

MarcLesser · Zen Wisdom: Doing the Impossible

Several years ago, I was designing a program to train mindfulness teachers. I had asked a friend and mentor for his ideas on what elements he felt should be included. The aim was to train these teachers to have the presence, confidence, and competence to work with groups of business leaders, and teach meditation practice, mindful leadership, and ways to develop emotional intelligence skills. His advice was short and sweet: “I suggest you design an ordeal. Give them something that at first might seem impossible.” I was surprised and somewhat resistant to hearing this advice. I wasn’t expecting to hear the word “ordeal.”

However, the more I reflected on this advice, the more it fit. I realized that I had gone through somewhat of an ordeal in the process of developing my own confidence as a teacher, trainer, and CEO. I often felt like an imposter in the early days of standing on the stage of auditoriums at Google headquarters in Mountain View, leading meditations and mindfulness exercises for really bright and achievement-oriented engineers. I had a good deal of meditation experience, but very little experience in teaching meditation, and no track record of working in corporate settings. It felt intimidating, like walking through fire. Little by little, through practice and a good deal of support, I learned and grew. This was my ordeal – it included my many mistakes, my fears, and my mustering up the courage to keep going, even when I was terrified.

We need these kinds of ordeals in our lives. I now begin my day with a comforting hot shower, but have added in the routine of turning on the cold water only for a minute or two. Each time it seems impossible and ridiculous as I watch my hand turn the shower knob from hot to cold. It shocks me, wakes me up, and it feels great. My whole body tingles with energy, and I feel a sense of accomplishment, having gone through my fear and resistance, even in this somewhat minor, self-inflicted way.

I have a similar experience each morning during my meditation practice. Sitting still, aspiring to let go of my usual judgements, and focus on just being curious, kind, and loving feels at times impossible. My mind continues to jump around, and the various voices of judgement are rarely quiet. And yet, this is an important practice for me. My self-made ordeal.

I’ve done many meditation retreats and there are a variety of motivations for engaging in these activities. One is this sense of doing what feels challenging, difficult, and impossible. It is a way of creating a fresh kind of space, both ordinary and extraordinary. Just sitting still, and seeing what happens.

In some way these activities of cold showers and meditation retreats are warm-ups. They’re relatively easy practices for dealing with the really impossible activities of daily life, and the ordeal of being human:
– How do we keep our hearts open in the time of war? Impossible.
– How do we take care of our aging parents, or guide and protect our children from all harm? Impossible.
– How do we live our daily lives, knowing that we will say goodbye to everyone and everything that we hold dear? Impossible.

We are impossible beings living during impossible times.

I think it’s important to train ourselves to work through whatever challenges and ordeals help us to keep our hearts open, even, and especially when, doing so is hard. This can include cold showers or meditation. Or maybe it’s sports, or music, or whatever activity is important to you. In our daily lives, raising children is an important, impossible activity, as is working and developing a career, making money, or being in any intimate relationship.

It’s all in the approach. It’s all impossible, easy, and sacred when we pay attention.

Here are some impossible things to think, in a poem by Robert Bly:

“Things to Think”

Think in ways you’ve never thought before
If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message
Larger than anything you’ve ever heard,
Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.

Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,
Maybe wounded and deranged: or think that a moose
Has risen out of the lake, and he’s carrying on his antlers
A child of your own whom you’ve never seen.

When someone knocks on the door, think that he’s about
To give you something large: tell you you’re forgiven,
Or that it’s not necessary to work all the time, or that it’s
Been decided that if you lie down no one will die.

The post Doing the Impossible appeared first on Marc Lesser.

Enjoy Your Life

I recently returned from a trip to Montana to visit my daughter and her family. One of the most poignant parts of being with my 3-year old grandson is that I can’t help but wonder how much of his life I will be alive for.

Though the question barely feels conscious, I feel the power of impermanence and a deep sense of appreciation and joy for the time I spend with him, and for this time that I’m alive on Earth.

In Shunryu Suzuki’s talk – Enjoy Your Life – he says: “The evanescence of things is the reason why you enjoy your life.”

Evanescence means the quality of things disappearing. Right now, as I write this, another beautiful March afternoon is disappearing. In fact, everything is in the process of appearing and disappearing, and this is both a very ordinary human reality and a powerful Zen lesson.

Somehow human beings have been given the gift of being able to measure time, and it’s something we seem to do rather incessantly. We’re capable of seeing, feeling, and living our lives with the ability to embody that everything is disappearing.

We can practice and train ourselves to embrace this fact. It can provide us with the courage to be our full selves, to appreciate every aspect of our lives, and to work for a world of greater acceptance and greater peace.

Shunryu Suzuki goes on to say: “The only way is to enjoy your life. That is why we practice meditation. The most important thing is to be able to enjoy your life without being fooled by things.”

At work, regardless of your role, and at home with your family, the point is to try to enjoy what you do. Enjoy how you can have a positive influence. Enjoy your life – even when things are really challenging and messed up. Your life is a gift, and it’s impermanent.

Of course, enjoying our lives, doesn’t mean to ignore wars, injustices, and the climate crisis. We will continue to face challenges and painful situations at work, in our families, and in all aspects of life. Enjoying our lives doesn’t suggest that you need not grieve, or see and feel the pain of what is, and what could be. Enjoying your life does not mean living in denial, including about the fact that there will be hard times. But perhaps it could be interpreted to mean that we should relish every precious moment and consider the lesson we’re being offered when times are hard.

I certainly plan to continue enjoying spending time with my grandson. He likes reading and hearing stories from my past. A story he particularly enjoys happened when I lived at Green Gulch Farm and took care of the horses while developing a horse farming program. While working there one day, someone approached me, shouting, “There’s a horse stuck in the mud!” “Impossible!” I responded. “Horses don’t get stuck in mud.” Well, it actually did happen. A large Percheron draft horse wanted some water from a pond that was surrounded by mud and got stuck. After a lot of work, we managed to get her out, with the help of fire hoses and a community of people.

I guess my grandson likes that story because it has a happy ending. And here’s a happy ending to this newsletter – a poem about enjoying our lives:

Inner History of a Day
by John O’Donohue

No one knew the name of this day;
Born quietly from deepest night,
It hid its face in light,
Demanded nothing for itself,
Opened out to offer each of us
A field of brightness that traveled ahead,
Providing in time, ground to hold our footsteps
And the light of thought to show the way.

The mind of the day draws no attention;
It dwells within the silence with elegance
To create a space for all our words,
Drawing us to listen inward and outward.

We seldom notice how each day is a holy place
Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.

Somewhere in us a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.

So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And wisdom of the soul become one.

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Be Like a Good Bonfire

Have you ever noticed how easily things get tangled? Sometimes simple things. If you place a computer cord into a bag or a backpack, without being extra careful, when you retrieve it, the cord might mysteriously become quite tangled. In the world of horses and farming, there even an expression for this event — things have “gone haywire” when you cut the metal wires holding bales of hay and don’t carefully put them away, chaos ensues.

There is a talk in Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki, called No Trace, where he says, “when you do something, you should do it with your whole body and mind…You should do it completely, like a good bonfire. You should not be a smokey fire.”

So often our work and relationships and many parts of our lives get filled with many complications. It can be quite common to go from activity to activity, leaving traces of conversations and activities done less than wholeheartedly. If we aren’t careful and sometimes even if we are, we can leave an emotional wake. This is particularly noticeable and problematic in the workplace where we are working with the pressure to get things, to meet deadlines, and we are almost always working in teams or at times across time zones and cultures.

What to do? This is one reason having a meditation practice is so important, especially for busy people. One way to look at meditation is as the practice of doing something completely, with your whole body and mind. It’s the practice of aspiring to be a good bonfire, not a smokey fire, and then to bring this feeling and this practice into your work and relationships.

With this practice and effort, see if your work, relationships, and life are any less tangled. And when they do get tangled (which they will) bring your whole body and mind to untangling the tangles.

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