Trapdoor

Zen means the bottom is going to drop out of everything. Instead of walking sure-footedly across the floor of our lives, confident in our ability to navigate pitfalls, Zen shows us that we learn only when the floor is gone.

We base our lives on reference points that we believe are indelible. This is MY house and MY wife. MY job is a piece of shit. I hate Democrats. Abortion is a SIN. I'll never understand YOU. I quit drinking. I ALWAYS order the pad thai.

We build our lives around these likes and dislikes, around the ever-emerging facets of our personalities. Despite the fact that we're never done, we always feel finished. We feel like we know who we are and we stop investigating. We try to cruise through our days with a mental blueprint that dictates how we should react to pretty much anything that we encounter.

Occasionally, though, we stumble into something that strips us bare. We have no idea how to respond; nothing has prepared us for this situation. All of our carefully cultivated notions of who we think we are and what we believe we're about are gone in a flash. Our mind empties, and, all too often, fills up with fear.

This is a trapdoor. We're walking with our head up and our eyes fixed ahead. We're striding as if we know exactly where we're going. Suddenly, the floor beneath us gapes open and we're falling with no reference points, no expectations, no hopes or dreams or illusions. We don't have a plan for this, so we allow fear to take us over.

It doesn't have to be like this. We are afraid because our preconceived ideas have proven they can't handle everything. Because they are PREconceived, they can't cope with moment to moment living. We need to walk without all of our judgements and opinions and reservations firmly in mind. We have to respond to life as it happens, not before it happens. Trapdoors are a chance to understand the world and yourself, not a cause for terror. They shake you out of your misbegotten certainties and remind you that life doesn't shape itself for you.

All of our daily reference points are bullshit. This journey we're on isn't from Tallahassee to Topeka. Road maps and directions won't help. Wrong turns aren't wrong and the right of way isn't right.

The next time you fall through a trapdoor, notice what's happening. Watch how your mind reacts. I think you'll find that it panics at first. That's a bit disconcerting, but stay with it. Much sooner than you think it'll calm down and you'll be able to actually experience things instead of just reacting.

As I said at the beginning of this post, Zen is about the bottom dropping out of everything. Not just paying attention when we stumble into a trapdoor, but actively working to remove the floor altogether. Without ground to stand on, without any reference points, without anything familiar to stain our minds with illusions, we can see the world for what it is. We can participate in our lives fully, and not worry about what our blueprints dictate.

Wake up.