Suddenly There’s Nowhere to Hide

[From Radical Dharma Rev. angel Kyodo williams]

black lives matter

Our society is sick, suffering on average more than one mass murder a day. Our culture is sick, deeply divided and never having reconciled its racist roots. And we are heartsick that too many who are positioned to serve and protect continue to enact violence against Black and Brown people. From the strength of hara and the bigness of heart, we join with all people who act from love, wisdom and courage to take away fear, greed and hatred. Together, let us heal; let’s do the work. We stand with Black Lives Matter.

read: white leaders can and must face the discomfort of grappling with racism

Suddenly, there’s nowhere to hide

Jen Ayres learns something from striking out on her own – April 2021

The first 6 months of self-employment have been interesting, revealing. As a one-man-band selling your own time, there’s nowhere to hide. No marketing or sales or HR departments to support you, no line manager to monitor your workload, no boss to inspire you. If you have issues with confrontation, setting boundaries, time management, managing finance and so on and so forth, it all shows up in this business that you’ve created. This entity that is the sum total of all your action and inaction – the good and perhaps not so good.

Here she says that in the stillness ‘we keep running into ourselves’. That’s exactly what I’ve been discovering in a business context and is perhaps why my journey into entrepreneurship has coincided with the gradual deepening of my Zen practice.

As I was thinking of writing about this topic, which has been growing in magnitude with discussions with other business owners, I happened to watch Ginny’s video on why we sit still during zazen. Here she says that in the stillness ‘we keep running into ourselves’. That’s exactly what I’ve been discovering in a business context and is perhaps why my journey into entrepreneurship has coincided with the gradual deepening of my Zen practice. When you keep running into yourself day-in-day-out, curiosity about your ‘true self’ grows at pace.

Whilst the past year has seen many challenges and much heartache, the need to reinvent our everyday lives has also forged new opportunities, forced us to move in directions we weren’t expecting. For me, Zen training moving online and into our homes has been a blessing – big thanks to Andy for setting up Daily Zazen for the European Time Zone! I will freely admit, it’s taken me a while to get into the habit of getting up earlier, I’d been tied to my I’m-not-a-morning-person label for too long. But I love seeing the friendly faces of our ‘Zazoom’ group (as Andy calls it) and I’m feeling the effects of this regular practice in all areas of my life.

Gordon told me he sees Zen practice as ‘one more step’ and in these uncertain times we’ve all had to do just this – throw away the old plans, forget the fear and boldly take another step forward. I’m following this approach in my own business, to move forward consciously, and in my Zen practice. These one-by-one moves have taken me to Daily Zazen and then to Zazenkai (intensive programme to fit around work) and then to Keishin (Sesshin online – full-time, intensive, multi-day programme), something I never thought was for me. But that’s the thing with regular, little-by-little progress, suddenly you’re in a place you didn’t foresee, and you wouldn’t want to be on any other path.

Jen Ayres first attended a Zen Leadership program in 2018, which had an immediate and major impact on her life during a very difficult time. She’s (slowly) breathing into Zen practice, gradually understanding just how beneficial this practice is and sharing her journey with all of us.

resonate: especially for healthcare professionals

While we’ve all experienced difficulties in this time of Covid, those in healthcare have been especially hard hit.  People are feeling raw from grief, exhaustion, and brokenness in their systems, where more is being asked of already over-taxed people, and systems struggle with decreased revenue and its vicious cycle of consequences. That’s why we’re making the next session of the Resonate online course  starting May 17 especially accessible to those in healthcare. For example, the 3 live and lively calls that complement the asynchronous learning modules will be held on Saturdays in this upcoming session. 

Whatever conditions this time visits upon you, imagine being your most centered, effective self, with clarity about what is yours to do and even greater skill at getting others to resonate with you. That is the opportunity of this course. You’ll come away with:

·        A scientific reframe of how resonance does everything, expanding how you sense and make sense of the world;

·        Practices that increase your resonance and radiate to better relationships, influence and taking care of people;

·        Practical applications of resonance to a change you want to be and see in your life, work, and/or system around you.

HEAL instructor, Dr. Cindy Haq, has laid the foundation for this May session being particularly useful to those in healthcare as she has gathered more than a dozen colleagues in her system to come through the program together. I encourage you to follow her lead, for multiple people from a system training together can have a multiplied resonant effect for positive change in the teams and systems they share. Plus, the richness of the online discussion forum – another strong feature of this format – will be a great place to share ideas and best practices. Of course, you don’t have to be in healthcare to attend.  Anyone committed to making a difference is welcome and our commitment is to resource you to do that at your best. 

learn more and watch a sneak preview of one of the modules