Zen in Everyday Life

Yesterday I left a meditation retreat in the middle to go to a party.

It wasn’t a simple decision. Something in me wanted to keep sitting, but there was also something else in me. Something that wanted to let loose, to dance, and to feel — for a few hours — the weight coming off my shoulders.

Already on the way to the beach, from which we were supposed to take a boat to the party, it started raining. Along with it came a feeling of missing out. I still hoped it would pass, that they’d find a solution, that we’d still make it.

But only when we got to the restaurant by the sea and sat down with everyone, I understood we weren’t going to make it. I looked at the rain outside, saw everyone settling into their chairs, ordering more food, and understood the evening had taken a different shape.

The party moved inside me.

Inside, everything was noise and turmoil.

I felt pressure in my chest. Discomfort in my body. Tears wanting to come out. Disappointment. Sadness. Regret.

And mainly one thought:

“I gave up the retreat for this.”

What interests me is that for a long time it had already been clear there wouldn’t be a party, but something in me still held onto the possibility that there would be.

Maybe I wasn’t just holding onto the party.

I was holding onto the moment I’d finally agreed to have some fun.

My tendency was to immediately start telling myself the story.

“I’m not accepting reality.”

“I need to let go.”

“I have no control.”

And I’m not saying the story I tell myself has no value.

Sometimes it helps me understand what I’m going through.

But sometimes it seems to me that my mind rushes to tell the story before I’ve even had a chance to get to know the experience itself.

Maybe there’s value in delaying the knowing for a moment.

Not to stop thinking.

Not to cancel the story.

But to check whether the experience really resembles the story I’m telling about it.

To feel how it shows up in the body.

To see which thoughts appear alongside it.

To notice exactly what was lost.

And to inquire whether it’s really the same disappointment from moment to moment.

The shift didn’t happen when I tried to stop holding onto the disappointment.

It began somewhere else entirely.

After I drove everyone home, a friend called. He’d had a fight with his wife and invited me out to eat with him.

During the conversation I found myself sharing things with him that I’m usually embarrassed by. They had nothing to do with the party or the disappointment. But the simple act of letting them out into the world, instead of continuing to carry them alone, softened the feeling of missing out a little too.

Maybe the inquiry doesn’t begin when I find an answer.

Maybe it begins the moment I’m willing to delay, for a moment, what I think I already know.

To delay the story.

To delay the interpretation.

And to get to know the experience before I decide what it means.

• Maybe this is a small invitation to inquire:

What’s happening inside me right now, before I tell myself what it means?