Like many people, I recently took my first big vacation since the pandemic – a trip to Italy. While restorative in many ways, I found myself thinking, as I have a lot over the last few months, about what the antidote is to the weariness of this time. Some people have called it “languishing,” or the feeling of blah-ness that dulls motivation. Everyone is talking about “quiet quitting,” or disengaging at work in reaction to continued overwork. When we feel burnt out, things like binge watching TV or late night “revenge scrolling” can feel like the antidote we crave. But, do these low-energy activities restore your mood or make you feel whole again?

The true antidote is likely in doing the exact opposite — activities that require energy and active engagement. Volunteering, physical activity, starting a passion project, meaningful connections to community, adventuring, even reading a book. And, dare I add, Zen training? Carving out time for and adding things into our week that make our hearts sing can give us increased energy, feelings of having more time in our day and being more satisfied, which seems paradoxical.

Over the past week, I’ve carved out time to train with our U.S. online priest cohort during one of their fall intense training periods, where they train 2 hours each early morning and 1 hour each evening. This requires one west coast student to wake up at 3 am each day. When we check-in in the evening, we’ve talked about how they feel both physically tired and somehow able to engage in their daily lives in new and interesting ways. One student told us she even did better on her quarterly medical board exam than she had before, with less studying. As someone returning from vacation to an avalanche of email and other work, I was honestly a bit worried by the added time commitments I made to the group. But, this week, my daily life felt more connected and full in good ways. I also found that sitting with this group is uniquely deep and grounded. I’d urge you all to join our daily zazen to soak up and stoke their kiai.

Today, we finished part one of our annual Jiki Training, which prepares people to lead zazen online or in-person. I was pleased to see that several jikis are seriously considering leading their own groups, which is a great way to engage your local community. A graduate of last year’s jiki cohort led our online zazenkai in September. It was his first time leading zazenkai, and beforehand, he shared anxieties with me about whether he was up for the job, including whether he’d be able to effectively lead the group when he experienced pain from zazen. I told him my experience was that the expanded awareness you gain from leading a group makes your own pain less relevant. Reflecting after zazenkai on his experience, he said, “I felt a greater ability to connect energetically with the participants. This expanded my kiai and opened a more expansive space inside my body."

I’d like to close by noting that we have limited abilities to predict our futures, and often make decisions assuming that our experience will continue on a linear trajectory, or that our energy and time are limited commodities we must budget and bank. Zen training continues to teach us otherwise. We find kiai is more like a fresh mountain spring than a protected water reservoir. Time expands and contracts depending on our state of mind. Most people benefit from expending their energy in the right ways — somehow we seem get back more than we put in, especially when we endeavor to improve conditions for those around us. But, don’t take my word for it. Please try it out for yourself.