Koan

I remember that when I turned 27, I asked myself, “Why don’t I simply fit into the world around me?”  Oh, a Koan!  Koan means an “an impossible question.”  So I went away from my nice job and apartment in San Francisco and drove up the coast by myself into Oregon.  I was alone for three days.  I enjoyed it.  My problem?  I was trying to fit into the outsides around me and not my insides within me.  In solitude and silence I fit into my insides quite well.  I had touched on Zen for a few days.  But being a deeply flawed, insecure and fear-based person, I “forgot” or laid aside this wisdom when I returned to my nice job and apartment that looked out to the Golden Gate Bridge.  Like the bridge, I went back into my fog of trying to fit into the outsides while ignoring the insides.  Pretty much lost everything.  But some Power did not let me go.   Wrestling with koans!