Zen, Visualization, Patience and Getting Older

The earliest I realized that the brain communicates side to side is about 50 years ago when my brother's girlfriend taught me the song San Francisco Bay Blues. It had a short guitar break that I just couldn't play. Long after she left that evening I continued to try and play the riff. I finally quit, figuring tomorrow was another day. In the morning, I picked up the guitar and I could play it easily. Sometime during the night my right and left brain exchanged the physical and logical knowledge to perform the part. Perhaps this is Zen when you are sleeping.

Years later, I had become a credible mechanic, going from what had been driven by finances, to a do-it-yourself necessity to insure quality maintenance. I would sit on my stool in the basement, pondering the job at hand, in a trance-like state. My wife stopped one afternoon and commented about this to me. She told me that she had for a long time wondered why I would be sitting avoiding the work. After many years of observing this she came to the conclusion that I was going over the job in my head before doing it, working out the kinks. I was applying what elite athletes call "visualization". I realize now that this trance-like state was very much like Zen, completely putting your mind into the moment to utilize all you mental resources to effect a successful outcome.

I know I am getting old because my conversations with my peers tend to be more and more about our physical afflictions. But I find that growing older has had some advantages. One it has given me is a more patient, quieter mind. My friends, wife, and family might dispute this having been subjected to my rants about religion, education, or politics. But if I judge but the number of snapped off bolts, burnt dinners, or broken pipes from plumbing projects, I can see that I am more mindful in my approach to projects. To focus on the moment rather than rushing ahead to the desired outcome. And the results are better with fewer new words for the young children in the neighborhood to learn.

If I "connect the dots" of these experiences it teaches me that my whole life I have applied Zen-like techniques to challenges I have encountered and they have positively influenced the outcome. From right/left brain transfer to visualization to patience, these Zen moments tell me that I have practiced it all along in some manner. And as I have studied Zen and practiced to be more in the moment, I can do it more easily. Live with quality in the moment, relate with quality in the moment, do better in the moment.

Buddism speaks of the eight fold path as a method to eliminate desire (causing suffering). Some of these speak to right understanding, right concentration, right effort. As I go down the path to Zen, I am seeing we all understand aspects of what the Buddha was saying. And as I get older it becomes easier to put them all together.