Be more zen: what does this mean?!

Yesterday I did a radio interview with the Martha Stewart show on Sirius. It was about an article I wrote for the new Body + Soul Magazine, which is published by Martha. The article is called “Love Lessons” and is about how instead of getting all cranky when our loved ones don’t act right, we could employ something called The Four Immeasurables instead. (The Four Immeasurables are loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.)

As we were chatting, the very nice host said something like, “I guess we should all just try to be more Zen about the things that bug us” and I had to interject. I think by “being Zen” she meant relaxed. It’s easy to think that being relaxed means something akin to not caring. Like when someone accidentally knocks the cake you spent hours baking onto the floor, you’re supposed to be all “oh, no problem.” I said to her I don’t think that’s what it means. It’s more like being awake. It’s more like not lying to yourself about how pissed off you are that the dog is now walking all over your cake. And you’re not blaming anyone for your feelings. (This is key.) You’re just feeling them—and then you’re not. Only a relaxed person can ride the waves of emotion without getting thrown off onto the hard ground of despair, anger, or disingenuous-ness. Which are very stressful.

So this begs the interesting conclusion: the more awake, attentive, and sharp you are, the more relaxed you are.

Something to think about. But not too hard. That wouldn’t be very Zen.

categorized in: dharma