Staying Zen In a Modern World

I am thrilled that Lauren from Quixotic Life agreed to write a guest post for Sharnanigans. Thrilled I tell you!

Lauren the zen gal from Quixotic Life

I gave her a couple of random topics to choose from and she said that “Staying Zen in a Modern World” spoke to her! After reading what she came up with, I believe it really did! Lauren is a great writer and someone you just know you’d have a great laugh with. I hope you will enjoy this piece as much as I did. I’m hoping to have Lauren as a regular contributor so please show her the love and let her know what you think!

Staying Zen In A Modern World

It’s 7.30 in the morning, you can’t find your left shoe, you can smell the toast is burning, and you’re shaving your legs in the bathroom basin because you just realised your only clean outfit suitable for work is a skirt, but you don’t have time for another shower.

Simultaneously, you hear the phone ring and a sound you instantly recognise as your toddler’s juice cup hitting the floor. That rolling sound is the “spill-safe” lid that just popped off. Again.

This is about the least Zen you have ever felt in your life, and the time you need it most.

“Zen?! Zen?!” you shriek, “How on Earth is some Buddhist by-product going to mop up that juice, put the fire in the toaster out and get us all ready to leave the house in the 3.7 minutes we have left, all whilst dealing with whatever crisis is waiting inside that phone!”

This would’ve been my exact reaction, just a few short months ago. And yes, the above scenario actually happened. But in the course of the last year, my quest for self-discovery has led me down a path that has given me hope that I may not always be the frazzled mess I was that morning.

Truth be told, no philosophy is going to help get you out the door earlier, or stop those daily mishaps that at times have you convinced the Universe has cast you in a celestial sit-com without telling you. But they’re not the real troubles in this big old world are they? As times get more plugged in, people are feeling more displaced than ever. Our economy is teetering on a precipice, but we are told more and more that the way to happiness is material possessions. Cities get bigger, people feel lonelier, and our wild places that feed our souls and farming lands that feed our bodies are caught up in the suburban sprawl to make way for ‘planned communities’ and those shrines to consumerism; the shopping mall.

We work more hours now, and even when we leave our place of work, we are connected to it by email, mobile phones with wireless internet and the all consuming worry that if we stop thinking about work, something terrible will happen. Most people speak more often to their work colleagues or boss than to those family members not living inside their home.

In my own life, I have been caught up in the hype. I led a life full of the false sense of validation shiny new things can buy you, I was obsessed with work and status, and thought little about my soul, or my place in the Universe. My place was in David Jones, wasn’t it?

Then through a series of events I no longer think of as co-incidence or bad luck, but rather a gigantic spiritual reality check, it all changed. Suddenly, there was no money; no flash purchases to give me a short-lived flush of pleasure. And, monumentally, I was a mother. Let me tell you, when I first saw my child, I fell in love like a car crash. Nothing on this Earth was as important as her. Still nothing is.

It was after the birth of my daughter that I really began to change, like my pregnancy was actually a chrysalis phase, I was forevermore changed, different. I set off on a journey to explore this sense of wonder I had, this knowledge within myself that there was something out there, something a lot more important than a shiny new espresso machine.

And I found my spirituality. Well, the beginning of it. I’m still a work in progress, still exploring and questioning, still learning. I’d always been aware of the term “Zen”, but had never really given it much thought. Now, I found myself called time and time again to find out more. Like one of those mirrored mazes at a fair, everywhere I went searching for spirituality and fulfilment, I found myself turned towards Buddhism, and in particular, Zen philosophy.

So what is ‘being Zen’ anyway? Isn’t it just a luxury afforded to fey hippy people by their lack of participation in the real world? Sure, it’s easy to be chilled when you’re a solitary robed figure, alone on a mountaintop and don’t have to face peak hour traffic and the kindy run, right?

Well, probably.

But Zen is more than just learning to relax; it’s a philosophy that can actually help us navigate this crazy modern world.

Ask ten different people what Zen is, and you’ll more than likely get ten different answers.

It’s a broad ranging philosophy, a school of Buddhism that teaches that enlightenment comes from within, via meditation, rather than clinging to a dogmatic faith. It promotes mindfulness, being truly present in each moment of your life, rather than rushing through, thinking the prize is at the end. It also promotes a non-attachment to material possessions.

I never thought of myself as the meditation type. I’m a chatterer, a babbler, and that is no different inside my head. In my early 20’s I went along to a few yoga classes, looking only for flexibility and toned muscles rather than any sort of hippy, airy-fairy stuff.

Whenever the group leader would try and lead us in meditation, urging us to empty our minds, I would either get the giggles, or find it truly impossible to turn off my internal dialogue.

As I have begun meditating again, I am still plagued with a babbling mind, worse than the chattiest neighbour on a long-haul flight.  But Zen has taught me that thoughts aren’t to be suppressed, they merely ask to be acknowledged, and then they float away.

Now, as I sit by my daughter’s bedside, giving her the sense of security she needs to fall peacefully asleep, I am no longer twitching and fidgeting, urging her asleep quick, quick, quick so I can rush out and get on with my evening.

Instead, I sit on the floor, close my eyes and listen to my breathing. All sorts of thoughts flow through my mind, the usual worries and stresses of raising a child, managing a household, juggling work and home and being a wife.

Others are totally left field, strange and sometimes disconcerting, but I acknowledge them too and slowly, my mind’s chatter stops. Then, amazingly, my mind stops asking questions, “What can I do about…”, “How will I cope with…”, “What if…” and starts providing answers, giving solace and generating inspiration and ideas.

Instead of fretting and working myself in to a stress-riddled mess, I find myself ready to open myself up to each new situation I find myself in, look for what I can learn from it, and trust that it will all resolve itself as it should.

I am more positive, and hopeful, than I have been in a long time.

Sure, I still have setbacks, my current job situation is looking very tenuous, and I just missed out by one on a great new job opportunity, which had me feeling pretty down for a bit, but instead of wallowing and becoming even more miserable, I was able to remind myself that everything that has happened to me in the past has led to something better, and to trust that this too is leading me somewhere better.

In the spirit of non-attachment, I recently had a massive clean-out of my house, donating a lot of clothes I no longer wear, things I no longer use and getting rid of a lot of general clutter.I thought I would agonise over every decision, feel a sense of loss, some of these things are worth a lot of money after all!

Instead, with every bag and box I hauled out of the house, I felt lighter, freer. I delighted in my newly simplistic (although not quite minimalist) spaces. It actually made it easier to get dressed in the morning, with my wardrobe pared back to the things I actually wore. I’m beginning to trust that the Universe will provide for me.

We as a family have been in some pretty tight financial situations recently, but we somehow get everything we need. I’ve been given some valuable lessons, and along the way have met some amazing people who have shone their own enlightenment on me.

This is what it means to me to stay Zen in the modern world: that everything I need is already within myself; there is a rhythm and a plan to the Universe, and I am part of it; it’s fine to delight in a new pair of beautiful  shoes, but don’t expect them to make you happy or turn you into a better person; and that every moment is an opportunity to learn something, if only that there is not a juice cup in the world my daughter can’t conquer.