Big Box Zen

"I cannot tell if what the world considers 'happiness' is happiness or not. All I know is that when I consider the way they go about attaining it, I see them carried away headlong, grim and obsessed, in the general onrush of the human herd, unable to stop themselves or to change their direction. All the while they claim to be just on the point of attaining happiness..." Chuang-tzu.

Since I'm between jobs (By the way, don't you just love the phrasing implying the next job is just laying there waiting for me to take it up?)-- now seems like a pretty good time to dream up a fun one. So, I keep thinking, since we are talking dream jobs here, how about a fantasy job? Most people who know me will thing full time quilter and that would fit the bill, for sure, but at the moment, I was thinking more like Clarence from It's a Wonderful Life. Except I'd be more like the Buddha's trainee and technically in Buddhism as I understand it, we don't try to *get* anywhere, but rather to realize that we are, at any given time, *here* with no need to go elsewhere, so I'd have to give some thought to how that correlates to an angel getting his or her wings (worth noting perhaps that bells in fact are frequently run in the Zen tradition in which I am a participant so whatever the end goal, the ringing of bells would certainly figure prominently as it did for Clarence).

I'd have a name tag of course (Buddhist Guide, Trainee) and the job description would include showing new souls (which would probably be called incarnations) around the karmic world which in my rendering of it, takes on the appearance of Costco, an oversized warehouse with everything you could ever want alongside that much which you never even realized you want.

So I'd take the pre-conditioned human, between lifetimes if you will, and point out a few things that, should he or she awaken with a desire to end suffering in the upcoming lifetime, might come in handy. The largest section of the karmic big box store, would be the huge central area that stores swing sets and barbecues in the summer and Christmas trees at holiday time. "This," I'd matter of factly point out, is your content. Getting stitches, bored rainy afternoons, first days of school on up to family members dying, miscarriages, divorces, and watching loved ones die of cancer and car accidents, drink too much, win a triathalon, get a raise, have an affair, and pay too much for coffee because they forgot the sales circular at home."

I'd go on to explain that the content will forever be competing for attention and shelf space with the inborn knowledge that your sense of well being is not controlled or defined by IT- whatever IT is (thank you ebay!) And I'll do my best to reassure by reminding my charge that most go through their entire lives forgetting that they know this is true, and, when you consider the state of the content, who can blame them.

Next we'll go up and down the aisles on either side of content. Rows of shelves containing toiletries, over the counter medicines and vitamins are just about the perfect location for The Voices in Your Head. "Lots of folks catch on to these babies pretty quick," I'll jovially explain. "They're the things that talk at you all day and all night long, telling you what you're doing wrong, what to say, what to do and think. Sometimes they will throw a complete curve ball and tell you how great you are. But don't be fooled. They live to make you completely forget that YOU aren't THEM and as such don't have to pay one bit of attention."

About this time, the entering soul will probably ask what all the fuss is about. "Why would anyone or anything *care* to throw me off track enough to create all this distraction?" And this will be a test of Buddhist trainee meddle because I'll so badly want to provide the 'proper' answer. I'll want to have something at the ready, like a SOAR story (situation, obstacle, action, result) we're encouraged to prepare by out outplacement coaches, lying in wait for the toughest interview question. Or I'll want to be able to believably explain that the system was actually intended to protect us from the harm of going crazy by coming up with a belief system however bogus.

If my thoughts are properly collected however I'll say instead, "All we know for sure is that there seems to be for every productive forging ahead that we do, an equal and opposite drive to deconstruct our ability to stay in the here and now, seeing it all, not believing any of it, and in that seeing, having the true freedom to attend closely to the life experience we truly want to have."

That will lead us to the section that runs parallel to the cash registers. Where mountains of oversized boxes of candy, pyramids of plastic jars of Twizzlers reside. "Here's where all the action is. Your conditioned responses. Things you do automatically. Sometimes these are perfectly matched to the content and other times, not so much. How much you can stay in your observing self and disconnect from your voices telling you how you should feel about your swing set, I mean your content is going to have a lot to do with how well you can choose what to do when." This conversation will probably require breaking into the Twizzlers for some relief, a perfect example of a conditioned response to hearing voices tell me I can't manage this part of the tour, but that's what training is for I'll realize.

And how will I realize this? Because a thought or feeling in the form maybe of the person who checks what you have bought against your receipt will arise in a moment of clarity, to remind me I do have options-- and lots of them. Like today for example, I can stay in my pajamas all day, skip church, eat junk food (oh, wait- that's what I AM doing!)-- you get the idea.

There are more sections to tour in our Zen Costco-- but first I have to work with someone in customer service on putting on my game face (and realizing I WANT to?!) as I hand over my badge tomorrow.

"I would like to learn, or remember, how to live." Annie Dillard