Something I really like doing is seeing/finding zen-ny things where you don't expect to see them. I could spin some flowery crap about how it helps me to see the good in everything and find inspiration from unexpected places, but really I like it because it makes me feel smart. I have issues.
Something else I really like doing is watching Sons of Anarchy on FX. I like Kurt Sutter, I like what he does, I loved The Shield (yeah, I know, Shawn Ryan was the show-runner for that, but I credit everything Sutter touches to Sutter). If you've never seen it, allow me to summarize:
Cliffnotes Version: It's a show about the Sons of Anarchy, a motorcycle club.
Better Version: It's a show about the members of a motorcycle club, and how they navigate the balance between the MC and their families, operating on the wrong side of the law for (sometimes) the right reasons, and all the trials, tribulations, and challenges included therein.
The show has a rather large cast, with each character possessing a varying amount of badassery. It can be extremely violent, and in it's 4 (we're in 5 now) seasons we've seen rape, countless murders, someone burned alive, a tattoo torched off a man's back, a child molester's dick cut off... You get the idea. Not somewhere you really think you're going to get anything zen out of.
Cue Chucky.
Chucky is a chronic masturbator (no, really, like right in front of you) that the Sons adopt, for lack of a better word. He's by no means in the MC, but he's sort of a pet. Or mascot, if you want to be less condescending about it.
Chucky is a character that Kurt Sutter surely meant to kill off. He was a minor character in one lesser story arc and, in what was almost certainly supposed to be his last scene, the Sons give him to some Chinese gangster. If I may blow some more smoke up Sutter's ass, he's a show-runner who really pays attention to his fans. He listens, and when he can he gives us what we want. In this case, we wanted Chucky.
Why am I going on about this, you may ask? Because Chucky is ultimate zen.
In addition to being traded to the Chinese and having his fingers cut off, he is spoken down to and ordered around almost constantly. What does he, a grown man, say in response to these taunts and commands?
"I accept that."
Chucky, to me, is zen incarnate. He has taken the shittiest of circumstances time and time again, and just accepted them. He doesn't have to like it (in most cases he doesn't like it), but he accepts it. His gratitude to the Sons for saving him (after they abandon him, but still) allows him to take everything going on, and just be. I can barely do that and I work in a fucking cubicle-farm. Not really a volatile environment.
Among the death and violence that hover over Charming like that cloud following around the stick figure in the anti-depressant commercial, we will always have Chucky. And I accept that.
