Zen Happy

Daily Inspiration

Printed in 'Prediction' Magazine Aug 2005

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With uncompromising predictability, the alarm goes off at 6.30am, you groan. You feel exhausted. Perhaps the insomnia was due to caffeine, but last night your mind could not settle and, despite your exhaustion, it would not stop thinking and worrying. Keeping you from sleep. You'd forgotten to get some milk so breakfast was scant; and your husband had left early so you had to walk the dog, who only seemed to want to fight with other dogs. The traffic into work was bad and you seemed to catch all the lights on red. When you finally arrived there was no parking and you had to leave your car a long walk away from the office. You had no change for the coffee machine and had to grovel to that cow in accounts because the others were out. You got a call from your new bank to say there were problems with your direct debits, which would mean your finances would be screwed up this month; and then one from your mum, chastising you for not visiting. Your boss decides that she doesn't want you to complete that report you had worked so hard on, and one of your team has just resigned. And on it goes.

Our typical day seems full of events, large or small, that are destined to make us unhappy. Some days few things seem to go our way, and our problems can so easily get the better of us. The hectic pace and relentless pressure of our lives, whether we are a mum working part-time and managing home and family, or a busy senior executive working long hours, we expect more from ourselves in less time. We are busy, sometimes productive and often harried; and our minds never stop. We live in our heads. Most of our work involves our minds, rather than our bodies; our frenetic lives steal the luxury of time from us. And this makes our minds even busier : planning; analysing; worrying; thinking; daydreaming. Perhaps the only time we realise this is just before sleep, when the monkey of the mind is jumping from tree to tree out of control, we can't catch it, we can't stop it … and we feel we'll never get to sleep.

All this busyness scatters our energy and leaves us feeling tired and depleted. And life seems less enjoyable; if only we had more time, or we were less busy, life would be better; if somehow our problems would go away we would be happier. Nevertheless, there is a way, in the midst of all this life, to be happy and experience a deep contentment. Without waiting for an elusive time when things are better, this way enables us to live fully and enjoy the here and now. The way is Zen.

A small word with big connotations? For some Zen might mean monks and long robes, for others chanting and religious austerity; for others it might not mean much at all other than incense and fashionable toiletries! But David Scott sums Zen up perfectly :   “ A way to be free and happy, and to increase your sense of well-being. “ Scott is an author and restaurater, and karate black belt instructor who runs a zen centre in Liverpool, he goes on to explain :  “ Zen allows you to be more calm and in touch with youself. There is a part of us that has a wisdom, but that wisdom is often covered and disguised by our busy day to day mental activity, it just doesn't get a chance to pop up. If we give these thoughts and ideas and concepts just a chance to die down a little, it does given this place I believe we all have a possibility to manifest even in the smallest way. So you can get a better sense of direction in your life. When we forget ourselves for just a few moments, we can get a glimpse of this wisdom.  “

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