The Same Old Zen

I entered my first full-contact karate tournament when I was 13 years old.  I'd been training for several years at that point, and after watching Enter The Dragon one to many times, I decided that I wanted to test myself against a real opponent.  It took some convincing, but eventually my dad packed up the family car, and drove me to a tournament in Chicago, Illinois That's how I found myself standing across from the child version of Ivan Drago.  My opponent was 6 inches taller than me with biceps as big as my legs.  In other words, he was bigger than me, stronger than me, and had a huge reach advantage.  Things didn't look good. When the match started he opened up with a roundhouse kick to the stomach that took to the wind out of me.  The kick was followed by a right cross to the face which spun me around so that my back was too him.  Finally, a snapping front kick to the back sent me tumbling out of bounds.  Stunned and embarrassed, I looked up at the ring cl

I was a raver in my early 20's.  My friends and I spent our weekends going to semi-legal parties in campgrounds, warehouses, and abandoned factories in order to dance the night away and listen to EDM music .  It was stupid, expensive, and extremely dangerous, but I'd be lying if I said that some of the best times of my life didn't happen at raves.  I was a weird, socially-awkward kid who was surrounded by other weird, socially awkward kids, and we all just wanted to feel loved and have a good time.   But there was a dark side to all of that care-free partying.  Drug culture was a very big part of the rave scene.  In fact, many people went to parties with the sole intent of getting high in what they considered a safe place.  As a result, it wasn't uncommon for promoters to have designated "chill" rooms where the lights were kept low, glow sticks were banned, and people were able to come down off their highs in peace.  Other precautions were also

When I started practicing Zen in 2013, I was in a very dark place. I was broke, I hated my job, and I'd just ended a long-term relationship . My anxiety was at an all-time high, and I was searching for something that would ease the pain. As a result, I was kind of excited when I read the first noble truth which states, "The world is full of suffering." "Finally," I thought to myself, "someone understands how I feel." I was a little less enthused, however, when I read the second and third noble truths which state, "Suffering is caused by desire," and "The way to end suffering is to end desire."  Given my situation, those two items didn't seem logical.  After all, the natural response to suffering is to want it to stop. Despite my misgivings, meditation was helping to calm my mind, so I decided to stick with it.  After four years of practice, I'm beginning to understand how the second and third noble truths can be