Have You Ever Been So Very, Very Busy? – Everything Zen

This I ask, if it ever happen to you, to be so very busy, either on a regular basis or infrequently as once in a blue moon—- or never at all. It sounds like a survey question, but it should be good to know.

I ask myself this question because for the past few days, I’ve been so busy that I didn’t even have the time to do the things I usually do, even those small things I do casually, like taking a very good hearty lunch or blogging at night for that matter, for I fall asleep so early after a very tired day.

I was assigned as the Alumni Coordinator for our college about a month ago and while I initially took pride in the designation, I never thought that it could almost tear me apart, apparently at that. Since the alumni homecoming of the University is fast approaching, my designated duties have gradually risen until I just found my hands so full of tasks to be done, and mind you they aren’t so ordinary.

Anyway its weekend now, a lazy Sunday afternoon, and I finally have some time to take some rest and recharge myself, ready for another busy week ahead, and I hope this’ll be not as heavily loaded like it was last week.

Now it is but by chance that during these busy days, I was able to browse on small anecdotes written in the lower-outer spaces of a bounded notebook I am using right now for the graduate classes I am attending. This is a notebook that Cousin Nigel had sent all the way from Chicago and I never really had examined it so closely even for once before, until now. The short but concise anecdotes were all about Zen. I’ve heard about Zen before. What I know is that it pertains or refers to some oriental concept or idea, particularly Chinese or Korean by origin. I’ve also heard it being used as a title for a number of Wordpress themes. But aside from those instances, I never really knew what Zen actually is. Maybe it’s part of the thrill, to never know what Zen really means in the beginning, but to love it or like it now that I’ve read some more about it, for the first time.

Here are a few lines or sayings that I found to be profound and rhythmic, among I think more than a hundred of ‘em since each leave of the notebook contains one, and it’s a fairly thick notebook.

1. Sometimes Zen is like riding a tiger. Later you become the tiger.

2. You don’t have to believe in Zen, you just have to do it.

3. Your understanding is like a plum. When it is ripe it will fall from the tree of its own accord.

4. Zen is not a religion. It is a way of life.

5. Before the first step is taken the goal is reached.

6. It is not understanding Zen that takes the time, it’s understanding all the things that aren’t Zen.

7. Plant a seed, let it germinate, then tend the plant. Zen is no more than this.

8. The only person stopping you from being enlightened is you.

9. Zen is like traveling home in a fog. You know the way even if you have trouble finding it.

10. Zen is the gateless gate.

I do not know if I could believe faithfully in these small sayings as if they were religious edicts, but to be sure I like them for their simplicity, their being poetic, prosaic and being elegiac all at once.