Chop wood, carry water

“Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.” — Zen Kōan.

On a flight from Puerto Rico to Houston a couple years ago, I sat next to a man on the plane who was returning from his first trip outside the mainland U.S. I was closing out a weeks-long visiting my family there, time I didn’t know how badly I needed until I arrived and didn’t feel like I could, or really wanted, to leave. Piping hot Puerto Rican coffee in the moka pot every morning, hours-long walks around my family’s technicolor neighborhood, sitting at the ocean’s edge in total peace while also giggling as competing suitcase-sized speakers blasted reggaeton. Questions—and reminders—from my aunt about what I was hurrying around for anyway.

The man next to me was thrilled about his trip, while also being very respectful of my time and space on that packed plane, too. He couldn’t wait to go back, even though he’d had to visit the emergency room for slicing his foot open on a bottle while out skateboarding, I think it was. He’d splurged on his business ticket and I’d been upgraded; his energy and excitement when he heard I had family in PR, that I’d been somewhat often, reminded me again of my deep luck.

After we talked for a bit, I turned back and took out my journal. It was the same version of one I’d been using for years: a monogrammed Shinola journal. “Wow, I have the same one!” he said, and took out his. It was even the same color. I’d bought these for years and gifted them often, and I’ve never seen another one out in the wild. I still haven’t.

He asked what I liked to write about. I told him, a bit of everything, and that I used to write as my “Job,” (capital “J”), burned out from it afterward, and then once I started to mediate found my way back to it, words pouring out, and my writing different. More fluid, more surrendered, more exploratory.

“I meditate, too!” he said, and he asked me about my practice. Sometimes you can feel it—I do. When other people inhabit that liminal space often, when they find a way, despite everything else in our lives today, to total presence, when they’re the type of person or have the type of habits that can allow for just being there with a moment’s totality. It brings it out more in me, too, and reminds me of how things can really beC and the purity of things. For some friends it’s through prayer and faith, others movement; others I’ve met it’s just however they are or whatever they’ve figured out thus far in their lives, and it really works.

My seat mate didn’t practice Vedic meditation (akin to transcendental, a 20-min, twice daily, practice) as I did, but he was as familiar with it. We talked a little about our experiences, what it’s like to sit with all of it and explore both the cosmic and mundane, whatever is being served in those moments of silence.

At that point I’d been practicing for three years. “It’s both subtle and profound, I’ve found,” I told him. “It’s like everything has changed and nothing has changed at the same time.” “Exactly!” he replied. It’s like that Zen joke: “Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.” I laughed. I hadn’t heard this before, and it fit. Wouldn’t you know it.

Joke, riddle, axiom, whatever it feels like it is, I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. A lot has started to shift in the world, and especially the U.S., since November 2023, and in ways that hurt my heart and stir my soul. I don’t know what to do often, but I do know that I’ve learned over the years (meditating) that for myself specifically, acting from a place provoked reaction does not improve outcomes for me or have the impact I intend. I need to sit with it a bit. I need to feel it all, and see what comes through on the other side. And, sometimes, that makes me feel like I’m doing nothing, especially when so much seems like it’s unraveling so fast.

I came back to this Zen koan, and draft in blog, when last night my inspiring friend Lilian (and an incredible writer herself https://liliancaylee.substack.com/) texted me and said, “It is people like you and your words who keep me together.”

I thought, and felt like, I’d been doing nothing. And here was a friend sharing how she was gathering strength from my typing on a train, thousands of miles away. Because I came back to something I’ve always felt compelled to do: writing. And because I was reaffirming my belief in something that felt like the only possible thing I can really do, and the only path forward: Be myself. Root into what feels right. “Before [this moment]; chop wood, carry water. After [this moment]; chop wood, carry water.”

I’m doing all the same things, and I’m also doing them differently. I am the same person, and I’m also a different one. We’re all the same, and we’re all different.

We are the revolution, right?

For Lil, and The Good Gossip

Ikigai: On purpose

Ikigai (生き甲斐, lit. 'a reason for being') is a Japanese concept referring to something that gives a person a sense of purpose, a reason for living. (Wikipedia)

I began watching Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones on Netflix with my parents. The first episode takes place in Okinawa, Japan, and the last—and perhaps most lasting—concept introduced as a way to understand and respect the longevity of residents is that of ikigai.

I think we do this very American thing in the U.S. of overcomplicating this quite a bit. We make it tied to profession; we put it in a box of branding; we think we need to pitch it in an elevator and that it is one big, fixed thing. This is my life. This is my purpose.

But, wait: “More generally (ikigai) may refer to something that brings pleasure or fulfilment.[1]” And purpose can change in every moment. Maybe it’s meant to morph.

I’ve been looking forward to find my “purpose” rather than orienting to the here and now, the life being lived. The sunshine gives me purpose; writing this little thing brings pleasure and relationships give me the most beautiful reasons for living.

Ikigai; life on purpose.

May we always know our worth

A good friend of mine at work, who is an amazing human and amazing at her job (and does even more, like providing important and heartfelt support for diversity, equity and inclusion programs) was recently promoted. After she shared the news, I asked her how she was feeling, and she said, “Like it was well deserved!” And I loved that. Because it was. And because I realized how uncommon it is to hear women feel empowered to respond like that, without the learned, conditioned behavior of feeling like they, we, have to divert attention from ourselves, unnecessarily humble ourselves in what is a shining moment. “Yesss!” I responded. “May we always know our worth!” She, we deserved to honor and celebrate that. Her promotion, her worth.

May we always know our worth. (Especially in the workplace, as women!) And may we always remember that our worth is intrinsic and whole, always, without need to be proven or earned.

(But, also, like, an aside: We live and work in capitalism and I always tell people, especially women and people of the non-dominant corporate profile, ie: not a cisgender, hetero-presenting white male, to negotiate the first offer because when I managed a large team it was always the men, especially and predominantly of the dominant class, who always asked for more.)

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For Kaitlin—keep shining, Leo star!

Ask for what you want

I’ve been thinking about how it’s really such a gift to know what you want. For one to know what one wants, and in any moment, really. Because it doesn’t always come through clear, and sometimes it’s actually what other people want, or what we think other people want, or what we’re expected to want so we’ve accepted we want.

To know what we want takes introspection, reflection and connection to ourselves. And it also takes recognition and acknowledgment that it may come in an unexpected form. Like, knowing what we don’t want, or something we don’t want; that’s also knowing what want. Or, not knowing what we want about something big (something we really feel like we want to know what we want about) may take us on a path realizing many little wants that leads back eventually to knowing the big want, even if they seem unconnected. Like what we want for breakfast.

The best way to honor that gift of knowing what we want, I think, is to ask for it. Ask for it in its true form, too; not some version we think is going to be more palatable, or easier, or more “attainable.” Because we don’t actually know that the more (“)convenient(“) compromise we’re proposing is actually convenient or even desirable anyone at all, because we don’t really know what other people. And it’s definitely not for us, because it’s not what we actually want.

Asking for what we want takes courage, and that comes from the heart. The heart chakra, too, is conveniently connected to the throat chakra. A direct line to asking for what you want.

Posted on 8/8, the Lion’s Gate of 2022

Joy is a practicality

Doing something because you want to, because the act alone of doing it brings joy, happiness, delight is reason enough to do it. Just knowing you want to, without knowing how you’ll feel, that’s also reason enough.

You don’t need a “practical” reason. Joy, being—are practicalities enough.