CxD #280: Reflections on Uvalde + Zen Retreat

Last time I published CxD I was on my way to a Zen retreat on Molokai island in Hawaii.

Zen retreats are profound but hard to write about since “you had to be there” is even more applicable about this kind of carefully curated, embodied set of experiences in which there is a lot of silence and beauty.

On top of the lived experience of slowing down and no longer absent-mindedly discarding my energy at all the shiny objects and digital pings of modern social-media-email-life, I also read three books, all with a similar theme: looking at how our minds work.

Maybe it is a form of laziness pretending to be judicious, but there’s no way I can begin to do justice to any of these books here, and most likely CxD is not the appropriate venue — if you want to know more, no doubt you’ll reach out and ask.

But cumulutavitely the question I want to answer is: so what? What has all this Zen stuff and reading about philsophy and mind and meditation done for you?

I’m not sure yet. But I’m reminded for the kazillionth time that the quality of our minds’ habits determines the way we experience the world. If I neglect to go to the gym and to go on runs and swims and yoga sessions, my muscles get flabby and walking up the stairs of life becomes mostly super not fun.

Likewise, when I don’t become deliberate with how I train and protect my mind’s proclivities, my mind starts growing weeds and develops habits that make my way of being in the world less clean, clear, and vibrant—a slow smoggy pressure creeps in milimeter by milimeter and one day, slowly and then all at once, I can’t see the sky anymore.

So these endevors are a reminder of a basic principle I’ve been yapping about for the last five years of CxD: watch your habits because they become your character, and your character becomes your destiny.

One other pragmatic outcome is that I’ve decide to expand my coaching/therapy practice, so if you’d like to have a conversation about how to design your own character and change some unhelpful habits, send me a message — I have more space this summer than I will before returing to teachign duties in the fall.

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I also went on a long morning run with an old CxD standby and friend, Tamir Kalifa.

He’s an exceptional human for many reasons, not the least of which are his accordian chops.

Since we last went on a run, Tamir continued working on documenting the Uvalde mass-shooting, and was appropriately honored for his work:

I’m gifting you free access to his exquisite long-form project about Uvalde and its aftermath which lives at the nytimes: click here.

Because that’s not enough, Tamir also wrote acoustic songs about his deepening relationships with the families of the victims; I was honored to be invited to his house to hear a few of the songs. This short moment below is obviously not a professional video and has not been edited one whit, but it’s about one of the young girls who was killed and her dream of going to Paris, and Tamir’s mission to bring an emblematic rock in her name to the city of lights where it now lives so that her dream is made real every day.

I’m reminded of W.H.Auden’s stanza, with which I invite you to sit for a while:

O look, look in the mirror
O look in your distress
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless