Hurry Up and Wait
There’s a man on a horse. The horse is galloping. They're clearly in a rush to get somewhere. Another man on the side of the road says "Where are you going?!" and the man on the horse says "I don't know! Ask the horse!"
There are hundreds of koans, or riddles, used in Zen Buddhism to challenge our everyday way of thinking and help spark some form of enlightenment and this one definitely got me thinking.
Every Friday night, I basically pay my therapist to give me weekly permission to relax and have fun. I talk to her about feelings of inadequacy, unworthiness, a self-inflicted cage I put myself in and achievements I am trying to tackle as a way of proving myself to the world. Sometimes I notice I'm on the horse and I actually know where it's going and I'm excited about the pace. Other times, I'd prefer a slow trot and forget that I have the reins and the say to make it happen.
Much of our lives are habitual, doing things just because that's how they've always been done. We create stories about our experiences that help us define the world and see it in shades of color that we're comfortable with. I just finished teaching the first, second, and third chakras in a series I'm leading. These foundational chakras, or energetic landmarks in our bodies, are responsible for our right to exist, our right to feel, and our right to act, yet our experiences and beliefs sometimes skew what we think we are worthy and capable of. We give up our power to the horse and the material objects and the bullet points on a resume that we think define our existence, so much so that we wait to live our lives until X or Y takes shape. As if life starts once we have a mortgage or a particular job or a partner or child. And up until that point, it's just our practice life. My former father in law was famous for saying "Once we get past the holidays" or "We just gotta get through the summer" or "When you guys buy a house...." and I always wondered what he thought would happen on the other side of those events. Then he could relax? Then life would be good? Then life would begin?
It reminds me of the saying "hurry up and wait." Let's hurry up and get to 2021 so this pandemic will end. But we all know that flipping a calendar page is arbitrary. I think of this with my own life. Can't I hurry up and meet my next partner? Have kids? Move back to the Midwest? Get to where I want to go? And I forget that where I am right now used to be somewhere I wanted to "get to."
In yoga we learn how to notice, how to articulate, how to be subtle, how to honor our presence. I know one day I will miss the broken Italian conversations I have with my old Italian mailman. And I'll long for the way the salty Pacific air makes my hair frizz. I'll crave the slower pace of pandemic life, the simplicity and the challenge of it all. There's a delicate balance between where we're going and where we used to be. What always lies in between is where we currently are when we're not trying to hurry our lives away.
I'm gonna hop off the horse right now. Or at least pull on the reins so I can see the beauty before me. Care to join? Let's relish in life together.
