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

On surrender

Today at 11:11am Los Angeles time, my friend texted me. It was 1:11pm Chicago time, where she now lives, and we’ve developed this habit of texting each other when we see the times align across our time zones, a little shared moment of numbers magic, even if contrived, which reminds us of our friendship, and our own magic.

Today, I told her that I’d had a harder morning, and took some time for a good cry (emotional sweat). She encouraged me to let it out (“No shame; it only makes us stronger.”) and shared that her current personal focus is getting comfortable with asking for help, and letting go of things. Only a few minutes later, she sent me a text with “Just saw this” and a photo of a calendar page and quote.

If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it. -Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

I’m currently reading The Surrender Experiment: by Michael Singer, which is his autobiography. Surrender is something we talk about often in Vedic meditation (like “surrendering preferences”) and I’ve found it to be a freeing, and expansive concept. As Singer describes it:

What would happen if we respected the flow of life and used our free will to participate in what’s unfolding, instead of fighting it? What would be the quality of the life that unfolds? Would it just be random events with no order or meaning, or would the same perfection of order and meaning that manifests in the rest of the universe manifest in the everyday life around us?

In practice, Singer describes it as:

The practice of surrender was actually done in two, very distinct steps: First, you let go of the personal reactions of like and dislike that form inside your mind and heart; and second, with the resultant sense of clarity, you simply look to see what is being asked of you by the situation unfolding in front of you.

I think of it often as trying to swim upstream—a cling, reach, for what was, what we know—as opposed to flowing with the current, surrendering to be led downstream to a place that may be, probably is, so great, that we can’t even envision it because we’ve never even been to it! Also, it makes the process, the journey, the trip, so very much more easeful and enjoyable. And that part, I think, is just is important. Maybe most important. Life is a constant flow, constant change.

To surrender.

For AshRising, Ashley angel! To floating through, and surrendering to, life and all its magic together

Follow charm

In the Vedic meditation community, we talk a lot about “following charm” (more here). It’s the encouraged, natural, intuitive way to move through life. Whenever I introduce friends to the phrase—when I am charmed to—I’ve found they love it. How charming.

The more I’ve cultivated a habit around looking for it, listening for it, feeling for it and following it (as charm presents in so many ways), the more clearly I find it glint and glitter in every moment. I’ve introduced much more lightheartedness and play into my days as a result, and it gently redirects me away from a life a “should’s,” and the empty operation of autopilot. (“We have to stop should-ing ourselves,” is one of those go-to mindfulness language jokes.) Because that’s when purpose comes through, and all is a muscle, and the more I follow charm, the more I see it glint and glitter in every moment.

I’ve found a handful of regular, quotidian ways to fold charm into daily decisions. The little inflection/reflection points have become opportunities to return and re-root with charm, especially if I’ve veered off course in a sea of emails and pings.

Questions & moments for inviting in charm:

  • What do I want to wear? How do I want to dress up? Who do I want to be, how do I want to feel?

  • What do I want to eat? What feels like it will feel good now, and one hour from now?

  • How do I want to move my body? Some days it’s a high-intensity workout, others a yoga flow, and some days an hour of rollerblading on the Venice Beach boardwalk. In many moments throughout the day, it’s dance breaks, which really make me so happy.

  • What do I want to do, in this very moment? Is what I’m doing, or is what I planned to do something that has to get done? (Like, does it really have to get done, like, right now?) If not, is there something else I would rather be doing?

I started drafting another post, and then I was charmed to write this one. I published another post, and I was charmed to return to this one.

Enjoy the charmed path—it’s completely yours!

The simplest solution is usually the best solution

Over July Fourth weekend I reached a year in my Venice Beach apartment, where, from my balcony every morning, I greet the ocean two blocks away and the mountains in the distance, even when the fog shrouds their outline. (Good morning, ocean. I see you; I feel you. Good morning, mountains. I see you, even when I don’t; I feel you. Thank you!)

I do love it here. It feels happy; a happy home and fills my heart. The prior tenant was even a famous actor/comedian (Mark McKinney, and if you end up reading this while I still live here, Mark, I’m probably still receiving your mail, and I did enjoy your copies of Kiplingers Personal Finance while they lasted) which feels very LA and fun. I moved into this place without ever having visited myself; I’d felt like it was right when I saw the listing, and when my close friend took me on a FaceTime tour, I knew from her response it was right. The only thing, she said, maybe, would be the sound from the street below. I was moving from NYC, I figured; it would be fine.

And it has been fine. But recently, I’m in a moment of, why just ‘fine”? Why not “great”?! (In all caps, with everything.) I realized I was wearing earplugs more nights than not, and I didn’t want to do that, and the nights that I didn’t I was convinced I was waking up more than otherwise, and I started getting into my head about not being able to sleep as well as I could (“ “) and so on, and so on so much that at some point I realized that I’d decided I probably maybe (should? yes?) needed to move. Maybe this was a sign, maybe this was time, maybe,,, but, like, I really didn’t want to otherwise??

And, then, in not even a great stroke of genius or particularly inspired insight, I realized I should try a white noise machine. It works, as millions (and millions, I’m sure) of people already know, but I had not yet discovered for myself. It was the simplest solution, and it has been the best. The best sleep, sound sleep, and it feels even easier to be here.

I wanted to start publishing again, notes and memories and messages to myself that have come up and I have come back to in the past few years, thoughts that come from slipping into “the space between thoughts,” as Deepak Chopra refers to the act, the effect, the result of meditation. The simplest way to do that, I felt, was just to write it here, on the little slice of internet real estate that was already mine, to do it my way, and do it for me.

I wanted to write something today, but didn’t know what, so I decided on this. The simplest solution, the simplest post.

(A philosophical follow-up note: I think simplicity, like anything, is a relative term, and that what presents itself as the “simplest” solution in the moment is because it is most relevant to the situation at hand.)