Take This Zen Test: Can You Practice When You’re Agitated?
June 28th, 2008Zen is so simple in theory.
The general idea is to be completely where you are, for whatever is happening, when you’re there.
If you feel joy, be there for it, and if you’re getting a route canal, be there for that.
In a sense, we can’t really escape from what is in front of us, though we try.
For example, at Santa Monica beach, I’m amazed at the number of rollerbladers, joggers, and walkers who anesthetize themselves with earphones tuned into music. Isn’t it enough, I wonder, to hear the ocean’s waves, the gulls jabber, and people laughing?
Why do we need a soundtrack when nature’s own is perfectly cool, ever changing, and in accord with deep rhythms and patterns?
Or, let’s say you try to avoid a certain amount of unpleasantness with your boss, choosing to suppress your negative feelings about a decision he made, instead of expressing them.
Where do you think those feelings go?
Do they vanish because we wish them away? Or, is it more likely that they get twisted into our back muscles, making us sore and tight?
We go to the chiropractor for relief, and we get some symptomatic help, but any reminder of our office makes us tense up, once more.
If you read my articles you know that I’ve unplugged from cable and satellite TV, so I watch very little, unless I’m on the road.
On a recent trip, I was watching the “Godfather” trilogy, which is still completely amazing after all these years, and what stunned me were all of the commercials for pain relief, and for maladies about which I had been utterly clueless.
If you actually suffer from any of these, please excuse me, but I think merely watching these ads can make you nuts, just by internalizing the idea that so many things can go wrong.
The thought came to me that there is probably someone out there who is taking 500 pills a day, a hypochondriac to be sure, but somehow he believes that he is so threatened by daily life that he must, lest his world will fall apart.
Do you know what that device is called in the middle of the washing machine that moves back and forth, relentlessly?
An “agitator.” That’s what TV is, but TV is also emblematic of everyday life.
Life agitates us, twisting us this way and then that way, lifting us, and then pummeling us.
The Zen question is: Can you “practice,” which is to say, can you maintain focus on essentials, on your basic work of waking up, becoming more enlightened about this experience we’re all having as humans, while you’re agitated?
For instance, from time to time, people come into my office while I’m writing, and they’re conversing loudly, sometimes disagreeing, and spewing hostility into the air.
My trained response is to continue writing, and to not resist their intrusions.
I’m not actually shutting out or blocking anything, but just continuing to focus on where I am in my writing. When I achieve this, I’m doing Zen.
Back to that buried conflict with the boss. Sure, you’re afraid to express your feelings, but can you still do it, though you’re less than completely comfortable?
That’s the time when Zen rolls up its sleeves and gets down to work!
Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone® and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service, and the audio program, “The Law of Large Numbers: How To Make Success Inevitable,” published by Nightingale-Conant. A Ph.D. from USC’s Annenberg School, a Loyola lawyer, and an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School at Claremont Graduate University, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. Headquartered in Glendale, California, he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com.
For more information about coaching, consulting, training, books, videos and audios, please go to: http://www.customersatisfaction.com
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