Everyday Zen

by Charlotte Joko Beck

The first part of our practice is as if we were in the middle of a confused, busy street; we can hardly find an empty place and the traffic is going every which way. It’s confusing and frightening. And that’s the way our life feels to most of us. We’re so busy jumping out of the way of what’s coming toward us that we can’t understand our own entrapment in the traffic. But if we watch it for a while we begin to see that there are holes in the traffic here and there. We might even step up on the sidewalk and begin to take a more objective look. And no matter how busy the traffic, here and there, we begin to notice clear areas. Now our third step might be to go into a tall building and climb up onto the third-floor balcony and observe the traffic from there. Now it looks different; we can see the direction of it, which way it’s moving. We see that in a way it doesn’t have anything to do with us, it’s just going on. If we climb higher and higher and higher, eventually we see that the traffic is just patterns; it’s beautiful, not frightening. It’s just what it is and we begin to see it as a tremendous panorama. We begin to see areas of difficulty as part of the whole, not necessarily good or bad; just part of life. And after years of practice we may reach a place where we just enjoy what we see; enjoy ourselves, enjoy everything just as it is. We can enjoy it but not be caught by it, seeing its impermanence, its flow. Then we go further, to the stage of being the witness of our...