Moments of Zen

12.23.10

[Zen]- To seek enlightenment by meditation in which there is no consciousness of self.

Hmm...meditation....yeah I can barely sit still for 5 minutes without having to get up and run a lap around the room. Even though I have never meditated, I have tried. Whenever I would sit and try to meditate I could never quiet my mind enough to sit and just feel my chest rise and fall. My mind races at a thousand times a minute and constantly jumps from one idea to the next, sometimes not even having time to complete one thought before moving to the next. Even though I never have meditated I can say I have felt zen. To me zen should be defined as follows:

[Zen]- A moment when one is at peace, when nothing else matters but being in that moment and feeling as though they are truly living.

It might be a bit wordy but I believe it gets my true thought across. Zen doesn't have to be sitting still, trying every possible way to make your mind shut up and just be. Zen can be found in a moment when your mind can't stay on one single idea for more than a second. The point is that zen depends on the person. Zen to one might be sitting in a yoga studio listening to a soothing voice try to talk all of the thoughts from your mind, but zen to another person might be found riding an almost broken down bus across the Sahara. I know I am in a moment of zen when I want to be nowhere else but in that moment, if someone were to offer me a million dollars in that moment I would refuse because nothing else matters.

As you know this spring I took my first trip abroad through the French Exchange at my school. I can't even begin to describe all the moments of complete zen I had while visiting the beautiful towns along the Mediterranean coast as well as the chic capital of Paris. My favorite moment of zen had to be when I was flying back home to Chicago from Paris. We had just reached the point when it was safe to remove our seat belts so of course there was a massive rush to the two bathrooms available to economy flyers. People were walking up and down isles, languages I could not understand were being spoken like buzzing bees, and flight attendants were pushing carts around with 30 different drinks, all of which I wanted to try. And with all this chaos circling around me, I was at peace. I knew that I was flying home to family that loves me, but I also knew I was speeding miles away from a second family. I was being torn in two separate directions. I was looking forward to going home and sharing millions of stories with friends and family, but every minute that passed a piece of my heart was being ripped from the country that captured it during the past two weeks. In a child's game of tug-of-war if one side pulls harder, the other side gets yanked away from the side where they started. If the sides were evenly matched it causes a freeze, no one winning and no one losing. France verses the United States, each wanting to win over the love of my heart. Going back and forth, one was winning, and in the next minute the other was on top. Something changed within me in an instant. The country war was snapped to a standstill. Both pulling equally, the two countries were evenly matched. They both hold family and friends near and dear to my heart, both have beautiful city and countryside, both I now consider home.

I have never felt more connected to myself or the world around me than when I was in Idaho this past summer for three weeks. Three weeks of no television, no internet, or even bathrooms and showers. During this time I realized how boxed in I felt in the "real" world. Every day I am constantly surrounded by walls whether they be the four walls of my bedroom, the endless white walls at school, and the invisible walls in my mind, blocking out all fear, danger, and the terrors of the world. Through my experiences in Idaho I worked, lived, and breathed nature, every part of it. I witnessed a moose crossing a stream near hot springs in the mountains, wolves howling me to sleep each night and even swimming in a waterfall The specific moment when I felt this unbreaking bond with nature was on our recreation backpack trip. We slept overnight at a campsite at the bottom of the mountain, falling asleep to the rushing rapids below. The next morning we packed only the necessities into our bags and started the six mile trek through the forest covering the mountain. After crossing two flowing streams we were about a half a mile from our destination of the hot spring and very hungry. We decided to stop for lunch before hiking the last leg to our site. We found this huge natural rock formation that we all could climb up onto and eat lunch and talk. I took off my pack at the bottom and climbed up to the top and ate lunch and laughed with my new family. I finished eating and decided to walk around the huge steps and enjoy the breathtaking views. I sat on the edge of a rock with a thirty foot drop below. With my feet dangling over the edge, I just sat. I sat and let the thoughts run in and out of my head as they may, and for the first time in a very long time I was at peace, at peace with myself and at peace with my surroundings. The walls both physical and mental were breaking down. I had finally knocked down the walls that stood between myself and nature, and also between myself and my thoughts. I felt as though all the fear within me was rushing away with the river below. Fear jumped off the cliff I was sitting on and waved goodbye as it went for a chilly ride down the river. The block that I felt between nature and I decided to walk itself back down the mountain, never to return. I stood up, feeling a lot lighter, because trust me those walls weighed me down, and ran back to my crew and suited back up to continue the final stretch to the hot springs. Standing at the airport in Lewiston, Idaho three days later, was the first time that physical walls stood around me in 21 days. After not having anything to block me in for three weeks, one would think that the feeling of claustrophobia would quickly set in, but no I had never felt so free. Free to live life to the fullest, because I knew that fear and danger were left on the mountain, never to return again.

Breathtaking Views

What is your definition of zen and where have you found it?