The Sustainable Lifestyle

While I was at Choboji last week for Spring Sesshin (trans. To gather the Mind), a notion that popped up on my mental radar screen was "How sustainable is my lifestyle?" From my perspective this is extremely important, since we live in a kind of "Attention Deficit Disordered," (ADD) culture.

Deeper questions come up for me such as:

Do I handled the relationships with family, friends and co-workers in ways that are sustainable or are they ones of extremes?

Is the way I treat my physical health sustainable, in terms of diet and exercise or am I doing things that could end up hurting me?

Do I treat myself in a way that can sustain healthy self-esteem?

Do I handle my finances in a way that is sustainable or am I digging a hole that is bound to bring trouble for me?

Do I take on tasks and responsibilities that are sustainable, over the long run, or am I pushing myself towards burning out?

I find these kind of questions really important, because it goes to a central question of, "Am I setting myself up for failure?" It seems to me that the notion of sustainability can have a significant influence on our ability to be fundamentally happy and satisfied with ourselves and our life in general. The other side of the coin is a life of anxiety, being overwhelmed and being destined for self disappointment and low self-esteem.

Sustainability was dramatically on display for me at Choboji, when I had the opportunity to work with the Tenzo (the chef) in making a few meals. In working with Chodo, I was learning and gaining new insights into "vegetarian" cooking where I might be able to do it after leaving there. Before that, I was just plain clueless and had no real idea or understanding of how to do it. In learning new information and skills, I've improved not only the likelihood that I can keep it up, but also improve my health over the long run. That's really important to me.

At this point, I like to think that living the "sustainable" lifestyle is the "Middle Way," that Buddha encouraged. Taking a look into ourselves and seeing if our lifestyle is sustainable is of real value. Not only can sustainability influence the quality of our life experience, but it can also be a sign that we really care about ourselves.

Namaste'

Jaye Seiho Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO

Comments

[Tony]

thank you.