Vol. 5. July 5, 2020
Any transition is difficult. I recently got married, about a year ago. The transition from bachelorhood to married life has been not a bed of roses.
Adjusting to new sights, new smells, and new messes tests the limits of patience and forgiveness.
For a tidy guy to see wet towels strewn across the bathroom floor twists the tender soul into contortions. For a vegetarian to smell the odious odors of roasting carcasses in the kitchen turns the stomach.
Marriage, I’ve concluded, is a spiritual exercise.
How does a Zen Buddhist approach the bands of bliss? Like a koan.
A koan is a paradox. Paradox comes from two Greek words. “Para” meaning beyond, and “dokein” meaning thought. A koan is beyond thought.
I approach my wife and our marriage as a problem that cannot be solved through rational thinking.
I just let her be. I just let the whole thing be. I can’t explain it. I don’t understand it. I can’t control it.
But when I slow down, and meditate … the towels don’t bug me anymore. The roasting meat … I open a window. The constant noise chatter … eventually fades.
They’re just sights. They’re just sounds. They’re just smells. The mind in meditation is not attached to form.
Forms are empty. Clinging to forms creates suffering for ourselves and those around us.
Life is a Koan
Zen master Hukuin (d. 1769) once said, “Let your whole life be a meditation cushion. Let the entire universe be your personal meditation cave.”
Approach life as a koan. Life is problem that can’t be solved through rational thinking.
Life exists in a way too marvelous for us to comprehend. Just rid yourself of conceptual thinking and you will have accomplished everything.
Would I recommend marriage?
Only if you decapitate yourself at the altar. Get your head out of the way.
Let it be. Meditate.
Then any transition is an easy one.
The Buddha Times 