Prime Your Pilot Light

There can be a gift in exhaustion.

One cold winter evening, Zen Master Hyakujo came upon Isan in the monk’s hall, alone, sitting in deep meditation. The room was so dark the Master couldn’t make out Isan’s face.

Hyakujo called out to his student, “It is so cold and dark in here. Why don’t you poke through the ash in the stove and see if there are some burning embers to restart the fire?”

Isan did as he was asked, then said, “There are no embers left in the ash.”

Master Hyakujo walked over to the fire, grasped the tongs and dug deeply into the ash. After a short time, he found a tiny, glowing ember. He held it up, and turned to Isan. “You said there is no fire left. What is this?” At that moment, Isan had an awakening.

Whenever I feel burned out, I remind myself of this story. It holds a profound truth about our inner spark. So often we feel we are out of gas, burned out, can’t take any more. And while it is often true that our gas tank is really and truly empty, there is always an intense spark of consciousness we can use to re-inspire ourselves.

I’ve been tapping in to this truth in my life these days. After months of working on my startup Tend attempting to fashion a product-market fit with deep and accessible mindfulness practices, I’ve found myself a bit depleted. While we are getting good traction with a solid team, the early stage holds many ongoing challenges.

This story reminds me that the seed of light is always on inside. Like the ember in the story, it may not be enough in itself to heat the room, but it is enough to re-light the stove. I think of it as my pilot light. It’s always there, I just need to find it sometimes.

We often miss this intrinsic spark we all possess. It gets covered up by the mundane routines of our day, and by the stress of deadlines and other pressures. Most of all, we miss it because we are up in our heads, living in an idea of the world, instead of the world itself.

It is simple to return to living in the world: take a moment to re-connect with your sensory experience. Appreciate it for the miracle it is. Notice the color of the sky, the taste of coffee, the sound of a bell or a bird or a car horn. The touch of a loved one’s skin.

I have come to think of meditation as simply spending quality time with yourself. If you can truly spend quality time with yourself — appreciating the unique personal sensorium of experience, thoughts, memories, and dreams that is yours and yours alone — then you don’t need a special form or technique. You don’t have to worry about posture or breathing or anything special. Just appreciate the felt sense of your life.

Your pilot light is always active, just by virtue of you being alive in your body. Don’t miss it.

When I was a young resident at the Zen Center of Los Angeles, we concluded a week-long retreat with a celebratory picnic. It was summer and quite hot. At one point, I approached the drink cooler, then saw that it was empty. I turned to go, but one of the senior monks (Tenshin, now Roshi of Yokoji Temple) called to me. He leaned over to the cooler, put a cup to the spigot and tipped the cooler to the side. The cup filled with juice that was present in a thin layer at the bottom of the cooler. He smiled and handed it to me.

That was thirty years ago. Ever since, any time I’m confronted with something that appears empty, exhausted or depleted — especially myself — I investigate it down to the dregs. And I usually find some spark that puts a smile on my face and keeps me going.

This can be the gift of exhaustion, when we allow ourselves to simply be alive.