Zen – Page 2 – KM Huber's Blog

Stupid Does Have a Darker Side

Posted on April 17, 2020 by KM Huber in activism, Consciousness, Current Events, Oneness, Zen

Some of my days begin with refrains of songs and sometimes the refrain stays the day.

The wood is old

The wood is tired

If the weather holds

We’ll make it fine.

But if the weather holds

We’ll have missed the point

That’s where I need to go. (From “The Wood Song,” Indigo Girls)

The weather cannot hold if we are to become better than we were, different, do more with the life we have rather than wishing our lives away for the perfect day, which will neither come nor stay. We can no longer miss the point, which has been our history.

We have one more chance to make good. Some version of this idea comes through my morning meditation almost daily now but none quite take me where I need to go.

I guess I could meditate for the rest of my life to feel better.

The thing about stupidity is determining whether people are just so dumb they don’t know better or they do, and they are just that evil.

If it no longer bothers me to appear in public with a tampon up my nose, I’m beyond blushing about any of my behavior.

It’s this last thought that doesn’t leave my mind too many places to go, so I jump off in this time of viruses jumping species. This is the world we created, in our own image as it were, and it’s not such a great place, yet here we are.

Our resoundingly resilient planet has pronounced, “Time out!” offering us a moment to consider another way of being, a chance to demonstrate we are better than we appear. Most of us are not evil but a lot of us are easily misguided. There is no longer time to ignore the point.

Which is not expressed in positive platitudes and memes of generality, none of which are about being alive and learning to live, which is messy and full of mistakes, painful but valuable in its daily experience. I eschew the word positive as it has become a way to spin whatever the weather is as–all will be well when it won’t.

I prefer to face the weather as it arrives, leaving the spin to those who brand life with one label or another, a constant commentary about absolutely nothing, utterly feckless (by design). Stupid really does have a darker side.

For me, mindfulness separates the wheat from the chaff, as long as I do the work, which I don’t always. I’m as susceptible to branding as the next person. Some days I want the weather to just hold so I don’t have to do my part (just for a little while) but I’m not alive not to live, not to experience. That’s the point.

During these days of distance from people, I look into the woods outside my window, so many worlds within worlds, where sometimes, too, chaos reigns. Viruses are known to all species but it is also true that some are of our own making. Maybe the world is setting itself right, whether or not we stay in it.

Time is a construct of our creation, meaningless to all of existence except to us. It isn’t that we cannot have routines in which we work and play but we will not pigeonhole the planet. The weather will not always hold. Sounds like a conspiracy theory, I suppose, but regardless, it is mine (with a nod to The Indigo Girls).

We are witnessing the fall of all we believed. We thought it would always hold. Turns out, it was unsustainable, the stuff of branding. It doesn’t mean we will not do better. It means we must.

I could meditate for the rest of my life and probably feel better but one day, the world would come knocking and I would be found wanting. Been there, done that. I’m not missing the point again.

KMHuberImage; St. Mark's Wildlife Refuge; Florida; Gulf of Mexico

The Sour Joy of Being Alive

Posted on October 4, 2019October 4, 2019 by KM Huber in #LongerView, Aging, Inspiration, Spirituality, Zen

Not all lemons are for lemonade.

Some are made of sterner stuff–tart flesh and rind for grind–a bit of zest. Acquired taste? Maybe or a mere matter of equanimity, appreciating the lemon as is, without making it into something else.

I find the lemon fine, a new lens, a wake-up call.

Recently, I purchased a digital camera (with 42X optical zoom) and received binoculars (12×50) as a birthday gift. Why would I want either? My index fingers and thumbs are compromised as are my legs. Any outing is quite the risk so lemons abound, and no amount of lemonade will change that. And I am tired of making lemonade.

The thing is, when a lemon is around there is a chance for zest, a singular moment unlike any other; as well, there is the sour that can sap any day, maybe even change life’s course. The lens of the lemon has much to offer.

In the last few months I’ve increased my visits to local parks and to St. Marks Wildlife Refuge, where the wild ones still run but are wary of me and mine, as they should be.

Binoculars and a zoom lens bring me to them from afar. Each look is framed in forever–in my mind’s eye or a single snapshot.

There is a bite to these moments, and I don’t ignore it or make it something it is not. I don’t want to miss what the outing offers, the sour joy of being alive.

Will this be my last trip?

I bite deeper into the lemon to capture the moment for all the days of no trips.

My first binocular view was from my bedroom window, the top of a dying but still substantial trunk of a Loblolly Pine and a pileated woodpecker so very present in its work and completely unaware of me. There is joy in not being seen, not interrupting.

That memory of the woodpecker enlarges itself every time I call it round. What was initially a day of being confined is now a memory of being in the world bitter but the lemon rind surprised with a not so sour zest.

There is a freshness to the flesh of the lemon, and I am never more present than in its presence.

The bite of the moment is just one sensation in watching a tricolor heron sitting a branch of a now dead oak in the saltwater marsh at low tide, all the while a Cooper’s hawk sits atop. As I write, the moment grows in its magnificence. Memory does that.

It was a fine lemon moment. My insect spray did little to nothing in keeping the flies from biting my legs; my arms were weak so the camera swayed as did my legs. Keeping my balance was a constant shift as shot after shot blurred or the zoom lens was inappropriate for the distance but still the snowy Egret fished the sun-drenched marsh grass.

I have come to the lemon lens late in life, grateful I did not miss it. Like the dying trunk of the Loblolly pine, there are years of life left but being is ever changing. No excuses, no explanations, no adding of sweet to bitter, just freshness with a bite, zesty. Indeed, equanimity.

How Not to Become a Zen Master

Posted on September 16, 2018 by KM Huber in #LongerView, Aging, Consciousness, Zen

“That’s right. Blame it on Zen,” my neighbor, Grace, says.

With Zen, I just don’t hold onto names or nouns anymore was what I was thinking, aloud it seems.

Grace is a Zen master not because she is 90 but because she is contemplative in all ways. She was born to it. And she attends tai chi twice a week. Her whole life is a practice. She would never label herself a Zen master.

We were in the middle of a project that began simply enough but soon involved another neighbor. Specifically, I opened a package that was not mine.

The package was one of four I was expecting but as you can see, there are five packages. The shocking pink garment stunned but it was the thank you card that intrigued–one American meme of gratitude after another, the length of a paragraph.

I read the card aloud to Grace.

“Which company?”

“Doesn’t say.”

All these packages were dumped in the mailroom of our apartment complex on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. They were there for the taking and so I did.

It was not until I straightened the cardboard boxes Grace had so beautifully broken down with her seriously sharp knife that I saw the name on the box of great gratitude was not mine.

And now I was writing a card of explanation to a woman whose name I kept forgetting. Grace selected the blank note card, rejecting the polar bear in favor of the fir of a mountain. Appropriate for any occasion.

“Well, when you decide to get dressed, I’ll take you.” Grace was sitting on my leather loveseat, waiting, with her small knife lying next to her.

She wasn’t taking me anywhere in a red polo shirt so large and so long it was more skirt than shirt, nearly covering my khaki shorts. The logo read Elder Affairs.

I finish writing the card and read it to Grace. “That’s classy,” she says.

“I want her to know what I did in case she’s not there when we return the package.” And with that, I pick up the flat cardboard box that is not addressed to me.

“You’re not going to tape that back up, are you?”

“Trust me, Grace. Perception is everything. I’m admitting my guilt but I’m returning a taped package.”

Just another of the many ways I avoid becoming a Zen master. I was born to it.

And so, we began our journey to Grace’s car. I with my three-wheeled walker and the re-wrapped package tightly cornered into my walker’s lower bag, and Grace with her walking stick in one hand and under her other arm, four cardboard boxes now flat.

Grace decided who took what. She is Sicilian. We do things her way.

We drove halfway across the apartment complex before I told Grace, “I forgot the card.” We look at one another and then, Grace turns the car around.

Again, we drive across the apartment complex and we score the nearest accessible parking spot, the one near the elevator. As we ride to the second floor, I try to channel Grace, but I am who I am. Still, my focus remains mountain.

I tell the woman what happened, as it happened, all the while holding her package. She does not take it from me.

“Do you know how many people would not even bother to do this?”

I wasn’t clear. She doesn’t realize I opened her package. I should not have taped up the box.

As I look into the kind face of the woman accepting her package, I am determined not to burst into her life but I tell her my story, again, with profuse apologies and my concern about the boxes being left unattended.

“You’re an angel,” she says. I assure her I am not and introduce Grace who smiles and stays silent. We leave.

As we drive back, Grace says, “You know, I think she would have difficulty getting to the mail room.”

“I’m no angel.”

Grace laughs.

On this day I have Grace, and for that, there are not enough expressions of gratitude in any form.

Of Arugula, Alarms, and Available Lenses

Posted on August 29, 2018September 9, 2018 by KM Huber in #LongerView, Spirituality, Zen

Mostly, I meet the energy of the day. What other lens is available? It’s not always what I want, the energy or the view, so sometimes, I look elsewhere.

These are the moments I am the center of the universe, as if I were a match for the energy of any day. Sometimes, the reminders that I am not are fierce.

Like my apartment filling with smoke or my garbage disposal clogged with arugula, sprouts, and spinach gone sour. Who wants to be present then?

I ignore the mundane at my peril. I set myself up.

The “smoke” in my apartment is a slight exaggeration, more like opening the freezer on a summer’s day. So, vapors. Enough to set off the smoke alarm, which did get my attention. Some of it, anyway.

I opened my front door, certain it was the fire alarm for the building. No one else was in the corridor.

“I wonder if anyone else hears this,” I say, realizing I am the culprit, as my smoke alarm continues to go off. Quickly, I shut my front door.

It is true the vapors were only in my living room, not in the bedroom where I work. There was nothing to notice other than the faint aroma coming from a small saucepan cooking pasta (gluten-free because I must not because I want).

And I had set a timer for the pasta. It had not gone off, just the smoke alarm. Nor was the pasta burned. There were drippings in the burner pan, obviously oil from?? Fresh so perhaps from the morning’s baking. Cleanup was quick.

No memory for moments I am not present, and sometimes, absentia becomes a boomerang. Something starts, and I am unaware, ignoring the energy I am. Mind elsewhere makes for thoughtlessness, fertile ground for boomerangs.

Such as arugula, sprouts, and spinach meshing with a green scrubber in the garbage disposal. Rarely, any of my food meets the garbage disposal but again, awareness.

This time, arugula getting shoved to the back of the refrigerator, along with the sprouts. In my mind they were still fresh–I had plans for them–alas, that was not the energy of the day. The handful of spinach was sour.

Nor was I particularly present as I shoved the greens into the garbage disposal. Promptly, the sink filled with swirling, green water, a whirlpool. What was to clog? Arugula, apparently.

I have battled with this garbage disposal so my kitchen has its own plunger. Such force in suction, the clinging and the letting go. So it was to be with the arugula, finally separating from the green scrubber, indisposed but not yet disposed, only drained.

In some past moment, the green scrubber found its way down the garbage disposal. What choice for the arugula except to wrap itself round the scrubber? The disposal was doing what it does. Same for the plunger.

Not sentient beings, those things, but all at my whim, like the energy I bring into the space of every day. Will I look through the lens available or stare elsewhere in longing? And when I look away, what change will I effect?

No doubt, it will find me.

Shoving My Snark Elsewhere

Posted on August 12, 2018September 9, 2018 by KM Huber in #LongerView, Consciousness, Cooper and EmmaRose, Inspiration, Spirituality, Zen

There was a time I whittled my wits for social media, a kind of “computer warrior” as a friend calls them. I sought battles that may have not been there. Seizing on one word or phrase and letting go of context.

Snark. You know the drill. I wasn’t any good at it. Zen showed me how bad I was. Embarrassing, actually.

I haven’t given up on social media. Just the opposite. Rather than preparing for battle, I just take a stand when or if it is necessary. Awareness is my armor and suits me better than snark ever did.

I’m wondering if worldwide connection is changing battle and its field. Connection is changing everything else. There is no absence of compassion but in its lack evil lurks, more patient than any of us might credit.

Awareness reveals evil as easily as compassion and in comparison, evil withers, kind of like snark, unable to stand the long light of day. Scrutiny. Either way, we are revealed; our hearts clench and open in response.

We’re seeking the security of the steadfast but awareness is shaky ground, ever shifting. And that is tiring. So why not throw some shade. Maybe give up for a while. Nothing seems to last because nothing does.

I think social media makes that clearer than any doctrine. All of life is an experience, one after another, the coming to and going from any one moment–all on shaky ground.

We’re like tectonic plates, and sometimes there’s an earthquake. And still, there is existence in spite of it all. In that, I am in awe.

So why not, as Pema Chödrön says, “be generous with your joy.”* Why not, indeed. Joy does so much with so little. Sort of like snark in that regard but joy is never-ending. Snark is more of a single position and like evil it evaporates for there is always more joy, and it comes from unusual places.

Just this past week I received a mint plant whose roots were all but bursting from the top and bottom of its plastic pot. Some strands had found their way through air holes. Life searching to stay.

I have not “shared” my apartment since feline EmmaRose left. There are fewer and fewer insects but I celebrate those who pass through. “We are always in relationship” Pema Chödrön once remarked regarding the insect in the room.

And now, it is a mint plant with rust on its leaves and a few shoots struggling for life.

I asked neighbor Grace for her expert assistance. What she teaches me about flora and fauna is such a gift. Within 24 hours, we visited the nursery where Grace once worked to select the proper potting soil, drainage rocks, pot, and tray.

It was a celebration of Grace and her years tending the native plants and the friendships of her life. She gave me the complete tour, including the goldfish pond.

When was the last time I knew such joy in the morning amid native species that somehow make room for me and my kind. Only they know why.

And that is what we brought home to the mint. With the care that comes with years of living, Grace aerated the soil around the squared roots, opening up more life, as we provided the breath of carbon dioxide.

Offering life for life. It’s existence, this joy.

*The idea of being generous with joy is from Pema Chödrön’s The Compassion Book: Teachings for Awakening the Heart, page IX.

The Peace in Thinking Bigger

Posted on July 9, 2018 by KM Huber in #LongerView, activism, Consciousness, Spirituality, Zen

Who is not looking to live with peace of mind, to rest in the reality of every day, to frustrate the frenzy in favor of calm. No one wants to ride the roller coaster forever. It’s exhausting.

My way is Zen, which provides perspective but not escape. I don’t get to detach from the chaos–create an echo chamber–mine is to sit in the middle of life, to “think bigger” as Pema Chödrön says.

It is more than sitting in meditation or feeling the prana of yoga. Those are powerful, pristine moments, truly a touch of peace, but like Heraclitus’ river, each experience is its own. No do overs.

Yet in the experience is the yen to return.

Some days I sit on its banks, having finally found my way around a horseshoe bend or oxbow but it is to the river I return, always at peace, a place to think bigger.

Where I accept that all of life is an experience. I trust it. And each time I drink in these waters, I am slowed, as if in the sip I experience life to no exclusion.

Every time I go off on another meander, yet another promising tangent, the river does not slow for me but trusts my return. Of course, the river is endless but my experiences are limited to one life.

I begin at the river, mind and body balanced, but soon one is ignored in favor of the other, leaving me vulnerable and impatient, probably defensive, which is what I bring to the world.

If I am not feeling equanimity, I’m not giving it. No amount of positive thinking/action will make it so. If I promise what I am not certain, offer words people want but I doubt, the river will wash out those bridges.

I am back where I began. My mind pulls up similar events and while memory is not 100% reliable, I am reminded I do not step in the same river twice–not ever–no matter how similar the results.

I add to my experience bank as I sit at river’s side, purposefully not moving, to still the body’s sensations, even the ever-present numbness/tingling in my hands. They who never quite wake appreciate the stillness of meeting the dawn as an act of breath.

It is a recent revelation for me, having my body still my mind rather than the other way around. It is not that I didn’t know, it is that I did not do. My mind is more cooperative because it doesn’t have to fight for its turn. No more meandering…well…less trying to step in the same river twice.

We are living impermanence on a grand scale, and it is not always what we would choose, but the river is not selective in its offering. How we accept experience defines us. Do we meet the dawn or run the meander only to return where we began?

The main question is, are we living in a way

that adds further aggression and self-centeredness

to the mix, or are we adding some much-needed sanity?

Pema Chödrön, Taking the Leap:

Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fear, page 2

Are we thinking bigger?

Zen and the Art of Girl Boners

Posted on June 24, 2018June 24, 2018 by KM Huber in #LongerView, Inspiration, Writing, Zen

“Does dirt have calories?” was my introduction to August McLaughlin six years ago. I had written a blog post about binge eating after reading August’s struggle with anorexia and binge eating. She nearly died.

I have been following her work ever since and along the way, we became friends. She had a great bulldog named Zoe, and beagle Cooper was still with me then.

Those were the days before Girl Boner® the blog, the podcasts, and now, the book, Girl Boner: The Good Girl’s Guide to Sexual Empowerment, a movement in the making.

I’ve listened to most of the podcasts on Girl Boner Radio, maybe all, and not just because I learn something every episode no matter the subject. If I need to get my Zen on, I listen to a GB podcast.

Each episode is as diverse as we are. GB celebrates being human, immersing ourselves in the experience that is life, not confined to one gender, one color, one sexual identity. Sexual empowerment.

Sounds Zen to me, for an open mind is the nature of being:

Beneath the mountain, a stream flows
On and on without end.
If one’s Zen mind is like this
Seeing into one’s own nature
Cannot be far off.

Zen master Hakuin, 1686 – 1769

To know our nature is to know our sexuality, and that is what GB is all about. August and I talk about GB, Zen, and quite often, our gratitude for Pema Chodron. Seems to me our conversation always comes back around to sexuality and our joy in it.

August: It took me years and a lot of struggle to realize that I had shame around my sexuality and the serious ramifications of that. I was in treatment for a severe eating disorder when I had an (a-ha) epiphany that changed my life: I’d had and enjoyed sex, but I wasn’t sexually empowered. I’d barely even talked about sex. The simple notion that our sexuality is a beautiful, natural part of ourselves, simmering below the surface—for those of us who’ve learned we can’t be “good” and sexual beings at the same time—can open us up to richer, fuller lives.

To change is to begin where we are, accepting that change is the constant. What is more difficult than opening doors we keep closed to everyone, including ourselves. What is more basic than our sexuality?

August: I knew when I first launched Girl Boner as a blog series five years ago that it was a journey, but I had no idea where it would lead. I wanted to provide a fun and positive place to celebrate and explore women’s sexuality. At the same time, sadly, we can’t explore female sexuality or LGBTQIA+ sexuality without addressing darker subject matter, such as trauma and abuse.

I’m really fortunate in that readers responded so personally and quickly and haven’t stopped—same for listeners of Girl Boner Radio. For me, listening has been the most important aspect of building Girl Boner from blog series and community to much more. When we open our hearts and ears, what’s needed and desired becomes super obvious. More important, the same applies to listening to ourselves and our sexual desires.

And if we cannot look at what is basic in us how do we open ourselves to relationship? I cannot remember a Girl Boner Radio podcast that does not explore the idea of looking within and being okay with who we find.

August: More than anything, I want people to know that they are not broken or flawed. However they experience and express their sexuality is more than okay. It’s beautiful and worthy and embraceable.

Our sexuality is a gorgeous part of each and every one of us and committing to a path of sexual empowerment invites greater joy, pleasure, and authenticity. We might even have a ton of fun in the process.

And that is what the book, Girl Boner: The Good Girl’s Guide to Sexual Empowerment, explores, embracing and experiencing our sexuality with joy and authenticity. It is such a refreshing read and conversational, chock full of stories and research so vital for sexual empowerment. It is not your usual human sexuality book. It is unique, a conversation about sexual empowerment.

And as it turns out, there is even a bit more.

August: I haven’t yet announced it officially, but I have a second book releasing on August 7th as well. (So excited!) It’s called Girl Boner: A Guided Journal for Self Awareness.

To me, journaling is just as important for inviting pleasure and authentic sexuality into our lives as any sex toy or how-to class. In some ways, expressing ourselves freely, without concern of judgment from others, is the most important step we can take. The main Girl Boner book has journaling prompts throughout. Girl Boner Journal takes this element further, so people can dig even deeper. I’ll share more specifics in my newsletter soon, should anyone wish to sign up.

And if you have not clicked on any of the links included in the post, here they are:

Pre-order Girl Boner: The Good Girl’s Guide to Sexual Empowerment (releasing August 7, 2018):

Pre-Order Girl Boner: A Guided Journal for Self Awareness (Releasing August 7, 2018):

Girl Boner Radio

August’s newsletter:

August’s website:

If we learn who we are, we accept our nature, and we’re on our way.

It’s Not “A Thing” Unless…

Posted on May 6, 2018May 7, 2018 by KM Huber in #LongerView, Spirituality, Writing, Zen

I have been living beyond my means, again, which means a lull in life, writing becalmed. I’m shipwrecked, dogged daily by whether to stay with the ship, relive the storm that has passed, or let it go.

I know that life is one experience after another, including shipwrecks. When aground, why not explore where I am rather than reliving the wreck. I get that now, at almost 66. “It’s not a thing” unless I make it one.

I cannot claim this brilliance as my own. This sliver of light belongs to a trusted friend, cheerful in all weathers, especially during my storms. She’s my lighthouse.

I set to salvage operations.

Most of my writing is beyond saving, easily recycled. Momentarily, I anguish over the gap between blog posts, once an ego favorite for shaming. I made it “a thing” for years.

What seems salvageable are pieces of a pirate story, although grounded in place rather than plot–as always–as well, a pitch for a resistance essay that is all thought and not yet a word.

Neither is yet a place on a map still to be drawn.

I’m fascinated at the idea of writing a pirate story, which does not mean it will end up being a pirate story. I am not good at writing fiction. I know that. For years, every time I failed it became “a thing,” a true tempest. Shipwreck after shipwreck.

And then it wasn’t “a thing” anymore. I stopped reliving the storm and discovered that my elaborate exploration of setting was its own story, and the map began to reveal its treasures.

Not all my expeditions take place on the screen. Sometimes, I visit actual lands, like Spanish Hole, where some 500 years ago at least one exploration for gold turned into a quest for survival.

Familiar story, if not exactly about pirates, but who has not sought one treasure only to find another? Is that a pirate story?

Where the St. Marks River flows into the Gulf of Mexico is Spanish Hole, its secrets intact. And that is its own kind of treasure, too. Like writing a pirate story. Who knows what it may not reveal.

As I was writing this post my dad sent me photos, as he often does. This one is from his cabin on Treasure Island. And I realized, I had set sail.

It is not as if a life lens comes with a ready-made life. It’s just a lens.

Thanks, Leonard Huber, for the view. ❤

Of Bombs, Washing Machines, and Missions

Posted on April 15, 2018 by KM Huber in #LongerView, activism, Consciousness, Inspiration, Zen

In the early hours of Saturday in Syria, bombs fall, a first world response to do as we say and not as we do or else. Mission accomplished, whatever that means.

Later that same morning, my washing machine fills with water and stops, refusing to start the wash cycle no matter what I say or do. Sometime later, the repairmen (it takes two) tell me it is a Monday problem, at which time they will return to empty my washer of water and clothes to see if the machine is worth fixing.

I know a bit more about washing machines than bombs but not enough about either. Although I am at fault in evaluating one with the other, I can no more afford to replace a washing machine than I can offer a solution to world peace.

Why is that?

Somewhere in the truth of that false equivalency is an answer on whose surface I skate every day, hoping it will hold until it doesn’t. Like Saturday.

Prior to the arrival of the repairmen, and perhaps coincidentally, I meet one of my neighbors in the hallway of my apartment complex. I am on my way to guide the repairmen to a parking place. In actuality, none are available for all are assigned, some to people who do not live here but occasionally visit.

I am among the lucky who have an assigned space, by virtue of being among those who have lived here longest but I know that assigned parking does not mean having a place. Freely, the phrase “parking Nazis” is bandied about but no one is quite sure who they are. Just that they are.

In my cell phone conversation with the repairman I do not explain everything but I do mention parking Nazis in hopeful emphasis, for I have yet to be a cause of parking concern and don’t want this to be that day, too.

As is, mine is not to meet the repairmen in the parking lot.

“Aren’t you a Buddhist?”

It is Vicky, hers is a smoker’s voice, husky and helped by tubes attached to the oxygen cylinder lying in the basket of her walker. Her dog, Teddy, tethered to its handlebars.

“Well, I see myself more as Zen.” Why I never just say “yes” to being Buddhist, I do not know. I just won’t.

“What does that mean?” Vicky asks, wary that I might actually try to explain. I can all but see the amount of oxygen increase in her transparent nose tubes.

She is not looking to understand the many schools of Buddhism (as if I do) much less the distinction of labels. Just like me, she has only her kind of love to give, and on this day she is offering it, doing her best to ask about something she knows nothing about other than it is important to me.

“It means open to everyone.” And for once, I stop there.

“So, do you do tai chi?” And we find our way to conversation.

If I hear her, I will find something to give in response. Nothing magical, just helpful. She’s in so much pain, much of it physical, and I tell her about my gentle yoga practice. It does not take much to begin a practice, just a DVD I tell her, and she is relieved. Maybe it will be a way for her. Maybe.

While Vicky and I talk, the repairmen are in my apartment examining all the parts of my washing machine, where distinctions matter. What began on Saturday must be met again on Monday. As always, mission ongoing.

Only later do I remember the parking Nazis.

Spreadsheet Zen

Posted on April 7, 2018 by KM Huber in #LongerView, Consciousness, Inspiration, Reflections, Zen

Each year is a workbook of 12 monthly spreadsheets with columns and rows by category. That is how I account for my life. It does not escape me that what it orders most in my life matters least, money.

From time to time, a friend and I talk about the carryover on our credit card, having paid the monthly amount but not having quite enough to pay the entire balance. We might pay no interest but the sheet is not clean.

Yet, if I look beyond my current expenses, I project balances that do not exist. I cannot know next month so I confine myself to the columns and rows that I can complete. But this spreadsheet is not without its Zen.

Every month I mine my finances, drilling down to every penny, as I record each receipt. It’s not that time-consuming as I don’t have many receipts. There are advantages to being “almost poor.”

Not the least of which is letting go of living in lack. That in itself is quite a discovery, having enough, and exploring all that I might do with it. Working within my labels, and looking forward to it, something I used to dread.

It was not the actual labels of personal care or household supplies that confined. It was lack. Before I looked at what I had, I was sure the month would outlast me, as if it were a contest, which it never was. It was a spreadsheet of columns and rows, choices.

Sounds like spin, and it may be, but living in lack is wandering a wasteland with no way out. Life in an infinite loop. Everything is never enough.

When you realize nothing is lacking, the whole world belongs to you.
Lao Tzu

I dive into each budget category, to its bottom dollar. It will always be 100 cents but shifted here or there, it becomes a receipt paid. It’s expanding the category, understanding that in some months the label of household supplies pays for personal care.

Rent remains rent even when it increases, like utilities, phone, and Internet. Bandwidth and a roof over my head are among the first paid. And then, food.

Life is not constrained by any label, and every time I try to make it fit, all I find is lack. It’s not the label, it’s my attachment to it. Best to roam the range of labels, keep my boundaries loose. That seems the Zen of it.