Wholehearted Practice

Or...when you chop the carrots, chop the carrots

In Zen, we talk a lot about wholehearted practice. About taking your seat (i.e. the meditation cushion) and making your best effort. Some days, your best effort is a Buddha-like concentration. Others, your brain is a giant swirling mess you can’t get hold of. Either way, the idea is to approach the practice with a whole heart.

There’s a Zen proverb I like very much that touches on this idea.

Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.

I take this to mean that sitting zazen is no more sacred, no more deserving of wholehearted effort, than any other activity, no matter how mundane.

Or, as they say in every Zen kitchen I’ve ever worked in…

“When you chop the carrots, chop the carrots.”

This idea of wholehearted practice has been on my mind a lot lately, because, for the past six months, I’ve been working on a novel with what feels like half a heart. Working to finish a book I’ve lost interest in, mainly because my agent liked two-thirds of it. And, because I’ve already put in so much time and energy.

Over these same six months, two of my writer friends have been busy promoting their books. Posting on social media two and three times a day, sending their loved ones out of the room so they can talk to podcast interviewers, putting on shoes and leaving their comfortable houses to go read in bookstores and bars.

Watching them, it’s occurred to me that this book I’ve been trying to finish, this book my agent liked two-thirds of, isn’t a book I am ever going to wholeheartedly want to put on shoes and leave my comfortable house for.

So, I’ve set it aside.

I realize this is the second book I’ve set aside in the space of a year, and I can’t say it doesn’t worry me. What if I’m setting these books aside because they’ve gotten too difficult to write? What if I’m just a quitter who uses Buddhist philosophy to justify giving up on something?

Then again, maybe this is part of the process. Being willing to walk away from something when it no longer inspires you.

I’m reminded of something Frank Ostaseski wrote in his book, The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully…

Bring Your Whole Self to the Experience

Or to put it another way…

“When you write your book, write your book.”

So that’s what I’m trying to do. I’ve gone back to the novel I started six months ago. The novel I began right before my agent told me she liked two-thirds of that other book. I can’t promise I won’t lose interest in this one. But for now, every time I sit down to work on it, it feels like my best effort. Even when all I can come up with is a giant swirling mess.