How the Concept of Impermanence Can Help Anxiety-Ridden Millennials

I wrote something for Tricycle magazine! An excerpt to the beginning for you to peruse:

During a lecture, a student asked Shunryu Suzuki, the Buddhist priest who helped bring Zen to America, if he could sum up the Buddha’s teachings in a nutshell. To everyone’s surprise, Suzuki answered. “Everything changes,” he said. It was as simple as that.

On a rational level, we all know this. Seasons pass, the lush leaves of spring transform to the vibrant, dying foliage of autumn. People grow older, wither with time, and pass away. On my New York City block, a new building stretches up to the sky where an old one sat just a few years ago. All of it is a part of the flow of life. “Everything changes.” Life is impermanent.

When You Stop Meditating Consistently...

There is an old Zen saying: You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day unless you’re too busy. Then you should sit for an hour. That saying always resonated with me because it speaks to the importance of meditation not only for relieving anxiety and being productive but for seeing the true nature of your mind and reality.  

But I haven't been meditating consistently. I could give you a lot of excuses or reasons. There has been lots of travel and change in my life recently for instance. Those are perfectly valid reasons... 

The odd thing about not meditating consistently is that you stop remembering what you are missing. Your mind turns into slush like most people's. Your attention span is much shorter. Your emotions pop around like a pinball. You're more susceptible to mood swings or giving into unproductive habits. But the thing is you're mostly unaware that you're doing it. 

And that is the real benefit of meditation: awareness. Awareness of your smallest movements or your breath. Awareness of what spikes your anxiety or what your temptations are. Awareness is key. Without awareness, we can become mindless, following our every urge or instinct with reflection. Without awareness, we can easily become the worst versions of ourselves. And it is that thought that always gets me to put meditation back on the calendar every morning even if I don't always do it. 

Visiting Home

I'm currently at San Jose Airport now to head to Seattle and Vancouver for a few days. This year, I went to visit my parents as I do every year around the holidays. I don't get to see them much anymore. Living in New York makes it impossible to visit except for maybe twice a year. 

This year felt especially hard for me. Watching my parents get old is especially tough. My father, in particular, has turned into an old man. He lives with pain and constant arthritis. He walks slowly. His hand shakes. His hearing is going. His eyesight is poor. It can feel heartbreaking to watch.

We had a conversation last night that was especially poignant, I thought. He talked about knowing he will die soon and about passing on his legacy to my brother and I. He talked about some of the connections he had made in recent years that have sustained him. But he admitted that he accepted his death but that it scared him. How could it not? He wanted nothing more than for me to get married before he left the earth. 

And then this morning, my mom seemed heartbroken by the prospect of me leaving and only visiting for a few days. Again, it was hard for me to watch as she nearly teared up.  I seem to live with a lot of guilt. Or maybe it's a lot of empathy. I can feel the deepness of a person's pain acutely. And it made me wish for a brief second that I lived in California still, that I had not chosen the "selfish" path and moved away to find my own life. 

I don't know what to do with these feelings besides accepting them as they are. Life is often sad. People get older. I'll get older and older. It's just the way things are. It's not easy or particularly fair. But that doesn't stop it from happening.