All for nothing

Alex Coolman

At the Superbodies gym on 18th Street in Costa Mesa, a man was running on

a treadmill, pushing himself hard and not going anywhere. On the busy

road outside, cars were rushing by on their way to Jamba Juice or

NikeTown.

And inside the Zen Center of Orange County, just across the street from

Superbodies, Deborah Barrett was discussing zafu, the small, firm pillows

the shape of jelly doughnuts that are used in sitting meditation.

“It’s soft enough to give you some cushioning, but it also retains its

consistency,” said Barrett, the director of Zen training at the center.

“Some of them are filled with kapok, and then some of them use

buckwheat.”

The matter of finding a supportive seating arrangement might seem like a

fairly mundane consideration. But in Zen custom, more so than in many

other spiritual practices, sitting is something of an art.

“We spend a lot of time trying to find a good position for people,” she

said, whether it’s in a chair, kneeling, or in some variation of the

lotus position.

Moreover, Barrett, unlike some practitioners, is a firm believer that Zen

is not something to be pursued exclusively on a mountaintop or in some

distant retreat. Zen should embrace all the nitty gritty realities of

life, she thinks -- from the noisy commerce of 18th Street to the details

of a properly constructed cushion.

The Zen Center is in the middle of a series of Tuesday evening courses,

“Nothing Special,” whose goal is to help participants find ways to make

this real-world application of their spirituality.

“All of this practice is designed for people who are working, who have

family lives and are living like any American does,” said Barrett, a

woman with short gray hair and oval glasses.

Even in its title, the series, which is based on a book by Charlotte Joko

Beck, emphasizes the everyday nature of the lessons that it is designed

to impart.

“Nothing Special” doesn’t teach people how to meditate for a dozen hours

straight or to reach a higher plane of existence, but it does, Barrett

says, have something to say for people who want to be a little more

“mindful” as they go about their lives.

“For most people, it’s their children, their teenagers and their spouses

that are the hard thing,” she said, and not some vague plan to achieve

nirvana.

What Barrett thinks Zen can contribute to people’s struggles with these

realities is a greater sense of centeredness and care, the kind of “being

in the moment” that many people assume is waiting just around the corner

but somehow never manage to attain.

“Everyone has an intuition of Zen, because everyone has had the

experience of being completely satisfied in watching a sunset on

vacation,” she said.

“But most of the time, we’re thinking it’s the next thing that will be

satisfying” -- such as anticipating a play during dinner and then

anticipating falling asleep while watching the play.

Through the Zen practices involved in the workshops, which include

sitting and walking meditation, discussions and “mindfulness tea,”

Barrett says she’s able to avoid some of these pitfalls, and also to be

more fully engaged in whatever she happens to be doing at the moment.

“It doesn’t draw you away from the events of life, it bring you more

deeply into them,” she said.

Barrett, 48, was originally drawn to Zen when she was in college. She had

considered herself Catholic, but her spiritual advisor encouraged her to

keep an open mind.

“Once I discovered Zen, that was really it for me,” she said.

Often, the people who come to the Zen Center -- and they come from San

Clemente, from Anaheim, from Long Beach and elsewhere -- have a similar

background. They were raised in some variety of Christian faith but turn

to Zen, without necessarily feeling any conflict between the practices,

in search of a greater sense of depth.

“They feel that they could be more than they are right now,” Barrett

said. “They need something to help that happen.”

When they do get down to meditation, the sheer shock of remaining still

for a moment after a life full of motion and distraction can sometimes be

unsettling.

“People kind of want that sense of being close to themselves and

immediately involved in their lives, and yet they’re afraid of it, too,”

Barrett said. She pointed to Americans’ enthusiasm for relentless

television consumption and cell phone chatter as a symptom of this fear.

But in Zen practice, the time spent at least trying to meditate, with

cell phone turned off and rear end firmly planted on zafu pillow, is

essential.

“The big mistake people make is thinking that they know all about

meditation because they’ve read about it in books,” she said.

“It would be like if you read a book about swimming but had never been in

the pool. They know these things, but it’s a question of getting them in

the right situation where we can help that to flourish.”

When newcomers arrive at the center, therefore, the first the experience

is, essentially, nothing. They sit silently on the zafu and listen to

their thoughts or the noise of the cars humming down the street.

For some people, this is not as easy as it sounds.

“If they don’t know how to meditate, we just have them sit on a chair and

be quiet,” Barrett said.The next “Nothing Special” course will be at 7

p.m. Tuesday. The topic for the meeting is “Change: Experiences and

Experiencing.”