Soul Shelter

There’s lots of Zen this and Zen that traversing the blog-o- and book-o-spheres these days, but few offerings have delighted us like Ken Korczak’s piece, a submission to Soul Shelter’s First-Person Essay Award.

Twenty-Seven Years of Zen Destroyed My Life

So I have been practicing Zen meditation every day for 27 years, and it has destroyed my life. Now, when I say, “destroyed my life,” that is not a bad thing, nor a good thing. You see, after 27 years of Zen, for something to be “good” or “bad” becomes a very problematic concept. Things like “good” or “bad” lose their meaning. Even the word “meaning” loses its meaning. So you can already understand why Zen has destroyed my life, even though it never happened. Zen did not destroy my life because my life was the way it was even before 27 years of Zen, except I didn’t know it.

It’s like what Zen master Shunryu Suzuki suggests in his book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. He says everyone is enlightened all the time, except they don’t know it. Now I realize that he was right. In other words, you don’t need 27 years of Zen to destroy your life because it has already happened to all of you. Suzuki also says that before you achieve Zen Enlightenment, you think it is something special, but after you achieve it, you realize that it is nothing special. He was dead right about that, too.

One of the problems, however, is when you have this realization it destroys your life, even though that’s not a problem because it never happened in the first place. In the end, nothing happens. There even isn’t an “in the end.” The fact that there could be “an end” to something is rendered ridiculous after 27 years of Zen, believe me.

I drive my wife crazy because I talk like this all the time, which is just one of the reasons why I say Zen has destroyed my life. For example, my wife might mention something Oprah Winfrey said on TV about how important it is for couples to communicate, and I say, “Oh that Oprah Winfrey is such a phony and a witless blockhead!” My wife retorts that Oprah makes some good points. Then I say the concept of “good” has no basic meaning. Oprah blabs on TV because it makes people give her money, that’s all. My wife can’t understand what I’m talking about. It’s a problem, yet my wife puts up with me, so it ends up not being a problem. This makes sense since there was no problem to begin with. You start realizing things like this after 27 years of Zen.

I once wrote a column on popular Web site. The article suggested that people should stop worrying about things simply because none of us have anything to worry about because of the obvious fact that none of us exist. The article spread like a virus across the Internet. In a short time, more than 1,000 posted responses suggesting that I was insane. Some people were insulted by my suggestion that they don’t exist, some called it a “whacked theory” and “mental masturbation” and a lot worse. I even got threatening e-mails.

Let me tell you, if you want to get people really upset, just suggest to them that they are not real, but only think they are real. Believe me, they will get extremely irritated with you. But why? It’s because people are heavily invested in the idea that they have an existence-a real, solid existence. They want that. Even if their lives are miserable, boring and bland, they will feel threatened if you suggest that their miserable lives are not real. What’s interesting is that if people are happy and leading exciting, adventurous lives, they will be less threatened by the idea that their lives are bogus illusions. They won’t care as much. They’re happy anyway, so why should they mind if anything is real or not? Still, even some happy people will get upset if you tell them they don’t exist. Suddenly they are less happy because they are afraid of the idea that they are unreal. They want their happy existence to be real.

Yet, the concept that some people are happy and some are unhappy is facile because these values or nuances have no basic meaning once you start thinking about them. After 27 years of Zen, to say “I am happy” or “I am sad” are empty statements that only diverts one-and the diversion is not even really a diversion because there is nothing to be diverted from. Get it?

You might wonder how all of this started for me. Well, when I was in college working on a degree in journalism, I took an elective class from the philosophy department. It was a one-credit class called “Zen Meditation.” It was 90 minutes once a week. What we did was, come to class, sit on a pillow, and stare at a blank white wall. All we did was stare at the wall and concentrate on our breathing. If we had “thoughts” we were instructed to ignore them, and not be bothered by them. After about 25 minutes of staring at the wall, we got up and did a walking meditation, which took about 15 minutes. Then we sat down and stared at the wall for another 25 minutes. After that, the instructor rang a bell, meaning we were supposed to stop. We were supposed to stop doing nothing, and start doing something again. That part is weird. Then he led a discussion about Zen, and we were to read Suzuki’s book, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.

One of the hilarious things about the class was that there were two fundamentalist Christian Bible believers attending. They did what they had to do to earn their single, measly college credit, including the meditation, but then in the discussion portion, they heaped scorn upon the whole thing and kept saying things like, “This is all so ridiculous! Why can’t people just read the Bible and find out what Jesus wants for us, follow His advice, and then lead a good, moral life?” And they would also say things like, “We’d all be better off giving our lives to Jesus and not wasting our time staring at a blank wall!” For some reason, these comments caused everyone to laugh, even if they agreed with the Christians.

Yet, everybody hated the class, and not just the Christians. Only eight of the original 20 of us finished the class. I have to give the two Christians credit-they finished the class, but never gave up their loathing of it, and they never stopped urging people to “go with Jesus.” Anyway, staring at a blank wall is extremely difficult. It drives people crazy. Nobody wants to do it, or enjoys it, even if it means one college credit toward a diploma. What’s weird is that I not only finished the class, but for some reason, I continued to meditate at least once a day, and I have done so for the past 27 years.

A lot of people point out to me that I am obviously a political liberal. They think that this is a contradiction because after 27 years of Zen, I really shouldn’t be a liberal or a conservative, and that I should be neither, but this issue is just a big red herring. Whether someone is a liberal or a conservative is not the point. The point is to see that one is either a Liberal or a Conservative. If you’re a liberal, then be a liberal, if you’re a conservative, then be a conservative. You just see it for what it is. Get it?

I have a friend named Mike who is a brilliant computer scientist. He’s from North Dakota. When Mike figures complex math equations, he does them so fast it looks like he’s writing a letter. Mike thinks I am nutty, and, in his words, “a flake.” Mike is your classic skeptic and atheist. He is a materialistic guy. He doesn’t even believe in psychology unless it is behavioral psychology. Everything is about basic cause and effect to him. All the rest is speculation. So, anyway, I asked him that if he thinks I am such “a flake” why does he waste his time hanging out with me” And Mike said, “Well, you’re a flake, but you know you’re a flake. That’s different from being a flake.” I thought, “Wow! Mike’s life has been destroyed by Zen and the lucky SOB didn’t even have to stare at a wall once a day for 27 years!” But then, neither did I!

It’s the same for you readers. Like my life, your life has been destroyed by Zen. Some of you know it, some of you don’t. But it doesn’t matter whether you know it not because the situation remains the same. It took 27 years for Zen to destroy my life, but it wasn’t wasted time. It wasn’t anything. It would have happened anyway. But, ultimately, nothing happened. Nothing HAD to happen, so nothing DID happen. Get it?

You may also enjoy:

“Bushido”

“Born Ready”

“The Heroic Journey“

(This post comes to us from Chicago writer Simon A. Smith, a contestant in our Soul Shelter First-Person Essay Award. Enjoy.)

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• These Things Happen by Simon A. Smith •

Right before the President called me into his office and told me to leave, I was getting ready to send another one of those long e-mails I’d become famous for around the office. I have a tendency to over explain myself and edit the living hell out of every last word before pressing send. Let’s see… should I point out that I already touched on this during previous correspondence or would that be too harsh… Delete. Noooo… hmmm… delete. Start over.

“Mr. K would like to speak with you in his office.” I’m not sure when he had arrived, but suddenly there my manager was standing over my shoulder. His legs and hips were all twitchy, like Elvis dancing, and I thought he might lose his bladder if I asked any questions, so I just got up and left without finishing the e-mail.

President K was seated at the head of a large conference table in his office. He looked so lonesome and bewildered sitting there by himself. I wasn’t used to seeing him like that. “We’re waiting for Pete,” he said, poking his glasses up higher onto his nose. Pete was our HR guy. That’s when I knew something serious was going on. I knew Robbie and Norm and Heather and Liza had all been let go earlier in the week, but I just didn’t think they were going to get rid of me. I was the only one in my department. After a long pause, K pointed to a clock on the wall and told me how he had gotten the thing custom made for himself in France, his own last name painted on it and everything. I lied and told him it was nice. Everything about the exchange was clumsy and rehearsed.

Get ready. That’s what I told myself. You’re getting canned today and you’ve never experienced this before. Today you’re going to feel things and think things you’ve never known, and I want you to soak them up. This is part of the human experience. You’re a writer. You might use this.

Pete came in and before he could join us at the table, K was already starting in. “You know there has been a lot of restructuring going on at the corporate level,” he was saying, “and there’s going to be a lot of changes…” And that’s when I lost my concentration. I tried focusing on Pete’s mouth as he followed up, but all I heard was a long series of hums, hushed motor noises, some wet tongue clicks, more mumbling and then… “These things happen. It’s nothing personal.” When he stopped talking I felt like I had woken from a dream. I think I actually said thank you. Why would anyone say that? Pete handed me a box and told me to collect what I needed and take off. How odd that they had a box all ready for me, sitting there like a grocery basket beside the door.

“Everyone should go through this once in their life.” I said that as I carried the box over to my desk and began loading things into it. One of my close friends stood up from behind her cube and hugged me. She wouldn’t stop crying. I told her not to worry about me.

At first I started cleaning everything on top of my desk and inside it and then I stopped. I dropped everything in a heap in the middle of the table. “What the hell am I doing?” I asked. “I don’t work here anymore.” I couldn’t think straight. I felt like I had to keep checking my pockets for my wallet and car keys. As I closed the box I told myself, Remember this. For the rest of your life you’ll know what it’s like to fill one of those cardboard boxes with all of your belongings. Before this, you only saw it in movies or read about it in books.

I took the train to Lincoln Square and ordered lunch at Costello’s. While I was waiting at the table for my number to be called, I realized that I couldn’t even remember what sandwich I had ordered. I looked down at the soda in my hand on the table and wondered what in the world I had filled the damn thing with. Had I even taken a sip yet? I was sitting in a pit of Jello up to my neck.

That’s when I heard something slap down hard onto the floor. “Oh God!” I heard a man exclaim. And then there was crying. Little baby crying and lots of it. The man’s son, maybe nine months old, had somehow managed to tumble from the stroller onto the floor and was lying face down, kicking and screaming in agony. It was clear the man was flustered. He had to first run to the closest table and set down his drink and sandwich and napkins and forks that had all been wedged under his chin before he could reach for his child, and you could tell how awful that made him feel, like he was choosing his silverware over his son, but I understood what he was going through. He picked him up and cradled him to his chest, but before he could sit down he tripped over the wheel of the stroller and nearly fell to the ground himself. He made it to the chair and hoisted his son to his shoulder and just as he was about to comfort the poor soul and all eyes were on him, the man from behind the counter came up and handed him the boy’s bottle, a blanket and some toys he had left by the cash register. “You forgot these,” he said.

All the air went out of the room. I thought the dad was going to cry. I wouldn’t have blamed him. But instead he stood up, thanked the man, folded everything under his arm, put the baby back in the stroller and battled his way out the door.

I empathized with that man. If I had had a child with me today, that’s exactly what would have happened to me. And I wondered what could have happened to him to make him feel so dizzy and helpless, so lost and confounded. Anything. Maybe he had been fired last week or maybe his mother had cancer. Maybe his wife was upset at him and threatened to leave.

Remember these thoughts. Go home and write about them. Write a story about him and the way he reminded you of yourself. Analyze things. That’s what you do. Use it to your advantage, and in the morning, look up job ads that read “NOW HIRING: LONG-WINDED, EMPATHETIC, DAY-DREAMING, SHOE GAZER WHO WANTS TO WRITE ABOUT EVERY DAY LIFE.” Go wherever it says to go and tell whoever greets you that you are ready. You were born ready. Ask them what took so long.

You might also enjoy:

“High Anxiety & Happiness”

“Time for Everything”

“Opting Out of the Deferred Life Plan“

Tim and I launched Soul Shelter for the same reason we wrote The Prosperous Peasant, from our conviction that for the majority of people, every day presents a single definitive conundrum: How do I realize my desire to do work I love while needing to do work that earns money?

We believed there ought to be a forum dedicated to exploring the special challenges of integrating inspiration and employment, fortune and fulfillment. Our own personal experiences have taught us (and the parables in The Prosperous Peasant avow this) that there is no secret shortcut to the realization of dreams and the fulfillment of wishes. But we felt that a blog would be the perfect vehicle for sharing amusing stories and insightful perspectives with readers — and inviting discussion. Now, not quite six months on the blogging train, our steadily growing subscription rate suggests that our instincts were true. We’re glad you’ve come aboard!

And today we’re rounding an exciting bend in the blog-road by announcing a new Soul Shelter offering — one we hope you’ll be as thrilled about as we are. With the Soul Shelter First Person Essay Award, we’re searching for compelling personal stories on our theme of balancing fortune and fulfillment. We’re offering a Grand Prize of $1,000 and publication on Soul Shelter to the best essay we receive. Prizes totaling an additional $1,000 will go to seven runners-up.

We’ve established specific guidelines for submissions, so jump over to SoulShelter.org and read our contest rules and FAQ thoroughly, then use the online form to send us your entry by July 1, 2008.

Oh, and did we mention there’s no submission fee?

We’ve already received some superb entries. And to give you a sense of the kind of material we’re seeking, today we’re featuring this moving essay by Melissa Hanser from New York City. Congrats to Melissa on being our first featured writer from the Award pool!

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• Lighting the Way for Others by Melissa Hanser •

“Melissa, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a teacher.”

“Oh. . .so you’re poor and lazy. Must be nice getting out at three o’clock, and having the summers off.”

I can remember the very first time someone uttered those facetious words to me. I was young, twenty-two or so. I had just finished graduate school and I had the drive of a twin turbo Porsche on the open road. I was hot-tempered and defensive. I argued my point until I was blue in the face.

“For your information, I am not lazy. I stay at work well past three, I work on the weekends, and by the end of my career my education will be comparable to that of a doctor. There’s no merit pay for working harder, or extending my day. There is no time-and-a-half. I don’t get more for the psychiatric counseling sessions that my job entails. I need the summer for my immune system to recuperate because I’m exposed to more germs and disease in a half-hour than many are in a lifetime. My job is important because I’m molding the future…”

I thought that the rest of the world was naïve for not understanding or valuing educators and I was determined to make sure that every person I encountered recognized the importance of my job. I was a teacher, for crying out loud, and I certainly was not lazy!

For many years, I stood my ground and defended my occupation, but often cried when I was alone because I too began to discredit the very part of me that I’d once been so proud of. Deep inside, I began to believe I was lazy, and that I could be making more money in another field-until one afternoon when a student refreshed my outlook and changed my defense.

It was 3:00 p.m. My extra-help session was over for the day and the children of my affluent school district were getting picked up by their parents one-by-one. I agreed to stay an extra hour every week before a test, beyond my contractual duty. It helped the students and the parents feel that they were getting the most from their tax money. I was tired and had three children lined up for private tutoring that afternoon. John, a young boy in my sixth-grade class, waited by my door as I grabbed my bag to leave.

“Ms. Hanser, you got a minute?”

“Sure, but just one. Did you need help with that last math problem? I made it more difficult so that the test will look easy tomorrow.”

“No. It…it’s not about the test.”

“Okay, what’s up?”

“Ms. Hanser, it’s May third.”

“Yes it…”

“Ms. Hanser, my dad died one year ago today … and I’m really sad today. I don’t want to tell my mom because she’s already sad enough, but … Maybe I’m more mad than anything. I’m mad at him for leaving us.”

My heart broke for this little boy. I sat down on the floor in the hallway and listened.

“He always bought me everything I wanted, you know…but he didn’t go to the doctor enough. I would give everything back if he had just gone to the doctor. They said that his cancer spread because he didn’t go when he started feeling sick, and I’m really sad today because I should be sad that he’s gone, but I’m mad at him and I know that’s wrong.”

“Sometimes we get mad at people for not taking care of themselves,” I replied. “Or for not seeing how important they are to others.”

“Well, what are we gonna do without him for the rest of our lives, Ms. Hanser? Who’s gonna take care of my mom when I go away to college?”

“You’re only in sixth grade. I’m sure you’ll figure it out by then. It’s going to take time … and time, whether you choose to believe it or not, heals all wounds. Time, and love from those who are close to you, and chocolate ice cream doesn’t hurt either.”

The young boy smiled, put his head on my shoulder, and cried so hard that his whole body shuddered with each sob. I sat there, and I remembered who I was, why I was there, and why I would teach until I had nothing left to give.

“Melissa, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a teacher.”

“Oh. . .so you’re poor and lazy. Must be nice getting out at three o’clock, and having the summers off.”

These days, my response is very different and much more effective than the hot-headed retort I once used.

“Poor … that depends on what exactly you’re counting. If you’re counting time, then I’m not poor at all. I have tons of time for listening, teaching, learning, and helping others. If you’re counting knowledge, I have a wealth of it that stretches far beyond textbooks and facts. If you’re counting love, multiply the love and respect of fifty children by the amount of years I’ve taught, and you’ll see that I’m certainly not poor in that either. Lazy … well that would imply that I don’t work hard at what I do … and you’re right. I don’t work hard at being a role model, lighting the way for others, or lending an ear to a child in need — because these things come naturally to me. It is nice getting out at three o’clock — I wish I allowed myself to do it more often. And the summers are lonely without the laughter of my students.

“You see, my job affords me the wealth of what matters most to me, and the ease of knowing that I’m great at what I do.

“So what was it you said that you do, again?”

Back in March, Tim wrote about eight terrific titles that have made a big impact on him, and have helped to shape Soul Shelter’s twin themes of fortune and fulfillment.

Readers were invited to email us with comments on the books that have proven most important in their own lives, for a chance to win a signed copy of The Prosperous Peasant.

Our prize winner is Soul Shelter reader Nadine Warner, who sent us the following eloquent recommendations of four unconventional and intriguing titles.

Says Nadine:

“This list may be colored by the fact that I read stories to children. But I think that who we are is influenced by our early years, especially the books that we read and that are read to us. I’m an avid reader — always have been — but when I think about the books that have truly shaped my outlook on life, I find myself going back to these books. Maybe it’s because I remember them within the bliss of my childhood. Or maybe it’s because the messages are just simple and timeless.

Hope for the Flowers, by Trina Paulus: The quest for transformation, to “know thyself,” to think independently, to conserve … it’s all in there. In the author’s own words, “a tale-partly about life, partly about revolution and lots about hope for adults and others (including caterpillars who can read).”

A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle: A book about other worlds, the importance of family, the balance of good and evil, how to go beyond appearances. Time and again I come back to this scene (and I read the book over 30 years ago!). The Beatles were right: Love is all you need.

An excerpt:

With the last vestige of consciousness she [Meg] jerked her mind and body. Hate was nothing that IT didn’t have. IT knew all about hate.”You are lying about that, and you were lying about Mrs. Whatsit!” she screamed.”Mrs. Whatsit hates you,” Charles Wallace said.

And that was where IT made ITs fatal mistake for as Meg said, automatically, “Mrs. Whatsit loves me; that’s what she told me, that she loves me,” suddenly she knew.

She knew!

Love.

That was what she had that IT did not have.

She had Mrs. Whatsit’s love, and her father’s, and her mother’s, and the real Charles Wallace’s love, and the twins’, and Aunt Beast’s.

And she had her love for them.

But how could she use it? What was she meant to do?

If she could give love to IT, perhaps it would shrivel up and die, for she was sure that IT could not withstand love. But she, in all her weakness and foolishness, and baseness and nothingness, was incapable of loving IT. Perhaps it was too much to ask of her, but she could not do it.

But she could love Charles Wallace…

…Charles. Charles, I love you. My baby brother who always takes care of me. Come back to me Charles Wallace, come away from IT, come back, come home. I love you, Charles. Oh, Charles Wallace, I love you.

Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she was unaware of them.

Now she was even able to look at him, at this animated thing that was not her own Charles Wallace at all. She was able to look and love.

Flatland, by Edwin Abbott: Sure, it’s a book that works on multiple levels (no pun intended!), but before I encountered this book about a two-dimensional square’s first contact with a three-dimensional object, I hadn’t given much thought to what geometry and physics could teach me about the nature of reality (this was grade school, after all!). Yet now, every time I hit a dilemma, I come back to this book to find out if, maybe, there’s something that I am not seeing, that I am not yet capable of seeing because I haven’t opened my mind to the possibility.

Earth Child, by Sharon Webb: The first book of an admittedly obscure Young Adult science fiction trilogy in which humans achieve immortality at the price of creativity. The process only works on children, so they are given a choice-live forever (my interpretation: become a god), or pursue the arts (my interpretation: channel God/The Divine/etc). As a creative type, I always come back to the idea of the arts being a calling, and recognize the sacrifices that we choose to make in the service of our craft.”

Many thanks to Nadine on her wonderful entry! Her copy of The Prosperous Peasant is on its way.

A few months back, I sat beside an old friend at a formal dinner. Call her Penny. Penny and I hadn’t seen each other for about three years, but we’d kept in touch through periodic e-mails. Penny happens to be one of the most industrious, inexhaustibly creative people I know, besides which, she’s always impressed me as having a virtuosic ability to stay connected to her innumerable friends, and to connect these people to each other — effecting introductions that often result in dynamic partnerships.

She’s a nexus, as I told her once (which only made her blush). She’s what might be called a natural expert in networking.

So imagine my surprise when, while chatting over our dinner, that very term arose and Penny sat back in her chair, shook her head, and said matter-of-factly, “You know, I really hate that word.”

“Networking?” I said.

“Yeah. It just gives me the creeps.”

I decided I’d avoid mentioning that it was a sort of keyword that popped into mind every time I thought of her. I gave a moment of silent consideration instead.

Finally I said, “You mean, it sounds too mercenary for your tastes.”

“Yeah! Exactly! I just happen to like people. I find them fascinating. I like to listen to their stories and learn about them.”

Penny’s artlessness is priceless. And I suddenly understood — after thirteen years of observing this woman’s social mastery, her lively, life-loving way of constantly undertaking new, exciting projects and forging relationships with highly creative, one-of-a-kind individuals — how it was that she managed to be so productive, so inventive, so ceaselessly inspired and inspiring.

Instead of channeling her personal and professional energies into schemes to “capitalize” on certain associations, Penny just opens herself, all the time, to the personalities around her. She primes the pump of whomever she’s seated beside at a party. Not because she’s looking for anything in particular, but because she’s unfailingly inquisitive, and always ready to entertain a diverse viewpoint or to query somebody and learn from their unique perspective.

Penny’s what I would call a People-Reader. She listens. Her interest is genuine and personal.

When it comes to books, some individuals are deep readers, plunging into the classics, annotating the margins of every printed page they lay eyes upon, constantly drawing connections between ideas digested from various sources. And some people read only skimmingly, sticking to headlines, or hurrying through great literature, or scanning ephemeral cyber-text.

In a similar way, certain people learn to cultivate deep “reading” habits in their social interactions, while others are content to “skim.”

Talk to Penny at a party and you’ll find yourself in a real conversation. Never will you feel that she’s taking measure of your “usefulness.” There’s always an authentic give-and-take with Penny, a sense of good old-fashioned human interaction — discourse of a kind that seems rare these days. That’s what Penny thrives on; that’s what she’s in it for; she’s never been in it for anything else. (I can only imagine how she’d cringe at the term “social capital,” though surely many who employ it do so innocently.)

Penny knows that the value of our life and our work can only be real if our relationships are real. True connections and meaningful accomplishments begin from a shared humanity.

A People-Reader like Penny never plots and calculates how to make this acquaintanceship or that third-degree connection or that person’s inimitable talent “add up” to profit for herself or advancement toward her own harbored ambition. That’s the stock in trade of People-Skimmers, a whole different breed, the true social mercenaries.

People-Skimmers are unpleasant folks. We’ve all run into them at one time or another. They’re the ones who prowl parties, cv’s pinned to their lapels and ears stopped against irrelevant pleasantries. They hasten through introductions and practice a form of small talk that’s like speed dating for the obsessively professional. Their radars are primed for prestige; human kindness and friendships are merely incidental byproducts of ambition — welcome, but of secondary importance. Not so for the likes of Penny. For her, Courtesy, Kindness, and the Art of Listening are everything.

I believe there’s an awful lot to learn from people like Penny. And I hope I’ve gotten better at really reading individuals as she does. I hope mere headlines don’t distract me too much.

And I believe, though Penny’s too pure to explicitly affirm this, that the deeply human traits necessary for good People-Reading are as fundamental to real success as they are to enduring friendship — and you just might get both in the bargain.

What could be better?