Driving Zen

Zen is not difficult, also not special. If you want special, you have special. But this special cannot help you. When you are eating, just eat; when you are walking, just walk; when you drive, just drive. That is Zen. There are many kinds of Zen -- eating Zen, working Zen, television Zen, driving Zen, playing tennis Zen. Sitting Zen is one part. Most important is, moment to moment, how do you keep clear mind? So Nam Cheon Zen Master was asked, "What is Zen?" "Everyday mind is Zen mind." So don't make special, don't hold something, don't be attached to something, don't make something; then you are already complete.

~ Zen Master Soen Sa Nim

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I found this quote while doing a Google search for "driving zen". You see, after a recent exchange in email with Lorianne about driving back from Sesshin for 3 hours in complete silence, I started to look deeply at why I really don't drive in silence on a daily basis. I wanted to find how others might have experienced driving Zen for themselves, what challenges they encountered and how did they overcame them. I even found two books on the subject (Zen Driving by K.T. Berger and Honku: The Zen Antidote to Road Rage by Aaron Naparstek) and was actually ready to place an order for them on Amazon when I stopped myself. I realized that I want to work this out for myself and not be biased by what someone else thinks about it.

So, during this morning's drive, I tried working with being aware of the entire experience of driving in the morning rush. My speed, safe distance to the car ahead of me, letting folks out to turn left. I was also very aware of my reactions to the other drivers, as well as my reaction to not having NPR on the radio as a normally would. I even found myself reaching for the radio button to turn on the radio after I noticed that it was a couple of minutes after the hour and the news re-cap would be on. I stopped myself and chose to continue to drive the rest of the way without the radio or CD player on. It's really interesting to see the impulse process at work in real time. Looking back, I think what caused me to automatically reach for the radio was partly the time and partly the uncomfortableness of not having the "important world issues" to occupy my mind's bandwidth while driving in heavy traffic. Then with just letting that impulse go, returning to silence, I found that what I was attempting to escape from wasn't all that bad after all.