Carry “Home” inside you. It’s always where you are.

I’m traveling for the second time in as many months, and in another month I’ll be out for another few nights. This time, my toddler is having a harder time with me being away, and it’s reminding me how I’ve gotten used to a particular place of being.

I mean this in more than just physical location. Even with my daily awareness practice of my Zen Year goals, I still have settled into a feeling of being in a routine. Even though it’s not accomplishing more than three quarters of what I’d like it to accomplish, this external routine has infused itself into my expectations, and my sense of place.

The toughest part of traveling has been breaking these patterns, of suspending these feelings of knowing what and “where” to expect. That has also been the most beneficial. It has been snapping me out of the daydream a bit, reminding me of how and where I like to live.

In the past, I wasn’t such a creature of habit. Life was pretty variable, and I flowed right along with it. Then different sets of patterns and samenesses took hold, some of them pretty grinding. I settled in. Somewhere along the way, change ceased being my one constant.

That’s really not such a bad thing, but in the meantime a visceral part of me has started to center my sense of place on the expectations, these patterns, these routines. It has taken these extreme suspensions of routine to shake that part of me up, reminding it of who and where I am. I am a creature of both change and habit, of ambition and restfulness, of expectation and surprise. I am also the product of my thoughts and feelings, which color and shape the world I experience.

There is no “place” I can expect to be, except in the space I carry with me. Whoever I meet, wherever I go, I experience it through the context of that space inside me.

As I remember this, I can take a deep breath in this strange air. I am at peace.

I am home.

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What cycles turn within us beneath our conscious awareness?

Fullness of the Moon
In four weeks heavens renew
Perhaps, so do we

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No pride. No shame. Just love.

We can’t deeply experience hard pride or shame without believing people are more or less worthy based on our behavior, our beliefs, or even just how we were born. To allow ourselves to feel superior or inferior, we must first embrace the idea we are separated from one another by our fortunes or failures. This idea is harder to hold onto each time we feel that spark of true connection from one heart to another. Each moment of pure acceptance of the divine beauty inherent in the human soul.

It is important for us to do our best to live up to our ideals for ourselves, and maintain a self-awareness that helps us recognize and remedy where we’re slipping. It is equally important that we practice patience and lovingkindness along the way, recognizing that who we are — our innate human worth — is eternally true regardless of what we do or say. We are not our successes. We are not our failures. The types of Pride and Shame that try to mark and set us apart based on such things are hamartia, missing the mark.

We are each human beings, learning to do the best we can with what we carry inside us. The ideas, experiences and opportunities that come to us shift from moment to moment, and we can’t reach out to them if we’re holding onto our judgments of what we thought we had just a moment before.

This applies both to judgments of others, and of ourselves. Love one another, as we love ourselves. That’s the path of wisdom, and the way ahead toward our truest selves.

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How do we know we can’t know what it’s like to be living inside a different skin?

While I’m thinking about identity, I wanted to share a Zen anecdote I rediscovered recently.

Fishy Zen

While Chuang-Tzu was walking along a river with a friend, he noticed the fish were swimming about in the clear water. After watching them a few moments, he remarked, “Those fish are having such fun, enjoying themselves in the water!”

His friend scoffed, “You are not a fish, you couldn’t possibly know whether they’re enjoying themselves.”

Chuang-Tzu shrugged back at his companion. “You are not me. How do you know I can’t know they’re enjoying themselves?”

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I’m not that, I’m this. But what if this changes?

After conversations I’ve had over the last week or so, I can’t stop thinking about the idea of Identity. That is, our sense of who we are based on those ideas, things or people we associate with… as well as those we reject.

It’s not that we tend to sit down to take a conscious inventory of how we define ourselves. Rather, our self-definitions assert themselves when they find an opportunity to prove their truth, or when they feel threatened. Even if we start to drift in what we believe (or want to believe), our definitions can be such engrained habits that they tangle us up into old patterns. This gets even trickier when our definitions conflict.

For an example, let’s walk through the thoughts and emotions I just experienced.

I write because I tend to identify as someone who can communicate deeper meanings in an accessible way. I hesitate to write because I also identify as so quirky I risk being cryptic and inaccessible. So when I tried to think of how to illustrate this identity thing, I sort of froze up. I knew I should be able to do it, but I doubted that I could, in the time I’ve given myself. My definitions were in conflict. Because of these conflicts, I can over-emphasize or overlook times when I am and am not as clear as I’d hoped.

I then figured that I could put this off until tomorrow, when I felt better prepared. I identify as accomplishing what I set out for, but also as getting so bogged down and distracted I never make the time to post. I doubted that I’d make it back tomorrow, prepared and posting. I’ll overlook when I do keep on task with things, and I’ll overemphasize to myself the times I slip off the track.

That’s when I realized I was doing it again. I’m becoming more aware of these ways my definitions work together and at odds, nudging or shoving me through random moments throughout the day. So I figured I had a decent way to explain my line of thought, here.

Perhaps tomorrow I’ll think of more to share, and find a good way to share it. I’m curious to discover my actual traits of communication and stick-to-it-iveness, prepared to revise my self-definitions accordingly.

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Healing isn’t the absence of disease, it’s the presence of health.

It seems I’ve fractured my little toe. I banged it against a table a week and a half ago, and it’s still just a little bit swollen and gets tender when poked a particular way (not on purpose). So I’ve been staying off it, keeping it steady, and letting it heal.

As I was assessing its progress today, I realized I was imagining a fracture in my toe, and hoping it heals away soon. It then struck me that wasn’t the best way to visualize things. Rather, it would be more helpful to visualize a healthy, strong little set of bones functioning perfectly as a tiny part of a vibrantly balanced and harmonious whole.

Shifting my focus to the health and balance I would like to enjoy helped me feel a little bit closer to that state. I remembered to relax my shoulders, breathe a little deeper, and calm the electric storm of my mind. I then heard my mind tell me, “Healing isn’t the absence of disease, it’s the presence of health.”

I’m now taking a moment to feel that presence of vibrancy and life. Breathing it in, I feel more present, myself.

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Keep imagining the mind of who we want to be, and soon we’ll find those thoughts creating our better self.

I have been quite aware of how strong an influence is  our baseline state of mind. I’ve noticed myself feeling tense and weary, then checked to find I was carrying a sense of being drained and overwhelmed.

I have been practicing taking a deep nourishing breath, and releasing that baseline mental pattern of stress. I recognized the beauty and generosity of Life, and remembered what at gift it is to have this experience. This lifted off much of the weight that I felt, and allowed me to begin to feel more energized and relaxed.

Soon after I realized this as a conscious practice, I came across this quote. May it help you learn how to frame your own mindset into who you would prefer to be!

You become that which you think you are. Or, it is not that you become it, but that the idea gets very deeply rooted – and that’s what all conditioning is.

– Osho

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This moment is like no other. Cherish its unique beauty.

Just a short while ago, I was sitting and cooling down after a long, hot Epsom salt bath. I was soaking out the rest of a cold, and the tension I’d worked on earlier.

As I was relaxing and breathing in the fresh air, the thought came to me, “This moment is like no other.”

So I stopped to make note of what made that moment so unique. I’d come out of hot soaks before, but I have a different meditation and relaxation each time. So I suppose, I come out of them a little differently each time as well.

I had also certainly had “working sick” days, but I’d struck a better work/rest balance today. My toddler had a particularly rough time getting ready for bed, but I’d helped him shake it off and go to bed pretty amiably, even playfully. So I suppose those were differences as well.

All that said, I’m not sure the details are really what I was trying to draw my own attention to. Even if I had that thought during a truly unpleasant experience, at least that exact experience wasn’t going to repeat in exactly the same way…

It comes down to the observation about snowflakes: however invisibly they may join together in a drift, they hold a unique pattern, according to the exact conditions in which they formed. Simply acknowledging the beauty of that truth acknowledges the precious gift we can enjoy in receiving each present moment.

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If what you need isn’t anywhere to be found, perhaps it’s time to look a new way.

I got a phone call today from someone who needed help, but wrote the number down wrong and got me, one of the people least qualified to help him. I explained that I was not only in the wrong department, but also in a satellite office, and that I would forward him to the queue where he could talk to someone who could connect him with the right answers.

He acknowledged this, and as I went to put him on hold to get him forwarded to the right place, he started talking again about the help he needed, as though the situation had suddenly changed.  I had already pushed the buttons, so I finished the transfer and went to go meet with someone.

I got back to my desk to find that he’d called me twice more.  Apparently he didn’t like being put into the queue he needed to be in, so since he had spoken to someone — even the wrong someone — he was convinced I could, in fact, help him.

How often do we keep chasing the wrong resource because it’s the one in front of us, instead of following the guideposts to where we really need to go?

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I believe it’s important to give all you can, but rarely is it a good idea to give all you’ve got.

I have this tendency to push myself a little harder and farther than I ought, out of the idea that it’s helping someone.  I’m still learning that line between going the extra mile, and running over the edge.

Today, I’m feeling the effects of that, reminded of how this habit leaves me with less to give in the long run. Since I’m sure I’ve blogged about this before, it feels a bit silly to admit to falling prey to this pattern again. However, I’m better off than I had been in prior times I’ve done this. I was a little more cautious, and was a bit quicker to recognize I’d gone too far and start taking care of myself.

I’m still going to keep exploring where my limits are, I’m just posting this little self-reminder to try to spot them before I’ve pushed past them.

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