Everyday Zen

by Charlotte Joko Beck

But we are usually living in vain hope for something or someone that will make my life easier, more pleasant. We spend most of our time trying to set life up in a way so that will be true; when, contrariwise, the joy of our life is just in totally doing and just bearing what must be borne, in just doing what has to be done. It’s not even what has to be done; it’s there to be done so we do it.

We spend a lot of time looking for something called the truth. And there is no such thing, except in each second, each activity of our life. But our vain hope for a resting place somewhere makes us ignorant and unappreciative of what is here right now. So in sesshin, in zazen, what does it mean to have no hope?

If we cease looking, searching, what are we left with? We’re left with what’s been right there at the center all the time. Underneath all that searching there is distress. There is unease. The minute that we realize that, we see that the point isn’t the search, but rather the distress and unease which motivate the search. That’s the magic moment—when we realize that searching outside of ourselves is not the way. At first it dawns on us just a little bit. And its gets clearer over time, as we continue to suffer. See, anything that we search for is going to disappoint us. Because there are no perfect beings, perfect jobs, perfect places to live. So the search ends exactly in one place, which is…disappointment. A good place.

It never happens all at once. Our drive to go after things is so powerful it overwhelms us. No matter what I say, after we all leave here, in five minutes we’ll all be looking around for something to save us. As the vow says, “Desires are inexhaustible.” But you won’t exhaust desires by searching; you will exhaust them by experiencing that which underlies them.

The way we usually hold a relationship is that, “This relationship is there, out there, and it’s supposed to give me pleasure. At the very least, it shouldn’t give me discomfort.” In other words we make this relationship into a dish of ice cream. That dish of ice cream is there to give me pleasure and give me comfort. And very few of us view our relationship in any other light than, “There it is; I’ve picked you out, and you know what you’re supposed to do.” So ordinarily when we worry about relationships, we’re not talking about the nice parts. Often the nice parts may even be predominant. But what we’re interested in is the unpleasantness: “It shouldn’t be there.” And when I say “unpleasant,” it could range from just annoyance to a state more intense than that.

But action based on confusion and ignorance leads directly to more confusion, upset, and ignorance. It’s not good or bad, and we all do it without exception. So in our ignorance, in our belief in this linear life—“That happened yesterday,” and “Here it is and it’s going to go on and on and on”—we live in a world of complaints, as a victim or an aggressor, in what seems to be a hostile world.

Now just one thing and one thing alone creates this hostile world, and that is our thoughts—our pictures and our fantasies. They create a world of time and space and suffering. And yet, if we try to find the past and the future that our thoughts dwell upon, we find it is impossible—they are ungraspable.

And unfortunately life for those who cannot or will not face this present moment is often violent and punishing; it’s not nice; it doesn’t care. Still, the truth is that it’s not life, it’s ourselves who are creating this misery. But if we really refuse to look at what we are doing—and I’m sorry how few people will look—then we’re going to be punished by our life. And then we wonder why it’s so hard on us. However, for those who patiently practice—sitting, sitting, sitting; who begin to practice steadily in their daily life—for those people there will be more and more a taste of the joy in a relationship in which no-self meets no-self. In other words openness meets openness.

If we want to see life we must be attentive to it. But we’re not interested in doing that; we’re only interested in the battle to preserve ourselves forever.

There’s a famous Buddhist parable: a man was being chased by a tiger. In his desperation he dove over the side of a cliff and grabbed a vine. As the tiger was pawing away above him he looked below and saw another tiger at the base of the cliff, waiting for him to fall. To top it off two mice were gnawing away at the vine. At that moment he spotted a luscious strawberry and, holding the vine with one hand, he picked the strawberry and ate it. It was delicious! What finally happened to the man? We know, of course. Is what happened to him a tragedy? Notice that the man being chased by a tiger didn’t lie down and say, “Oh, you beautiful creature. We are one. Please eat me.” The story is not about being foolish—even though on one level, the man and the tiger are one. The man did his best to protect himself, as we all should. Nevertheless, if we’re left hanging on that vine, we can either waste that last moment of life or we can appreciate it. And isn’t every moment the last moment? There is no moment other than this.

I remember the Saturday morning when we delayed the morning sitting schedule for twenty minutes so that some of us could go a few blocks for the great opportunity of watching the San Diego marathon leaders race by. At 9:05, along they came. I was amazed by the flowing quality of the leader’s movement: even though he was in the final five miles, he was simply gliding along. It was not hard to appreciate his running—but where is it that we have to run and practice? We must practice with ourselves as we are right now. To see a top-level runner is inspiring, but thinking that we should be like that now is not useful. We have to run where we are, we have to learn here and now, from how we are here and now.

When we are willing just to be here, exactly as we are, life is always OK: feeling good is OK, feeling bad is OK; if things go well it’s OK, if things go badly it’s OK. The emotional upsets we experience are problems because we don’t want things to be the way they are.

To look at this structure we have built is a subtle, demanding process. The secret is, we like that unreal structure a lot better than we like our real life. People have been known to kill themselves rather than demolish their structure. They will actually give up their physical life before they will give up their attachment to their dream. Not uncommon at all.

Until we see what we’re doing, we will do it. So in practice one of our tasks is to keep upping this ability to see. Very tricky, since we don’t have a great deal of interest in seeing anyway!

Well, there is the absolute point of view and the relative point of view. From the relative point of view we have a history. Much has happened to each one of us, and we are as we are at least partly because of our history. But in another sense we have no history. Zen practice is to see through our desire to cling to our history and to reasons (thoughts) for why we are as we are, instead of working with the reality of what we are. There are many kinds of therapy. But any therapy that leads you to feel that your life is terrible because of what someone did to you is at least incomplete, because each of us has had a lot done to us, right? But our responsibility is always right here, right now, to experience the reality of our life as it is. And eventually to blame no one. If we blame anyone we know we’re caught; we can be sure of that.

Throw your life; be this very moment; cease to judge it, escape it, analyze it, just be it. He says, “This is the Truth. Do not search for the Truth anywhere else.” Why? Why can’t we search for it somewhere else? There’s no place else to search because there is nothing that ever happens except when? Right here. Right now. And it is our very nature, enlightenment itself. Can we wake up and look?