Be Sincere

In Zen, they talk a lot about the importance of being sincere, of giving yourself fully and whole-heartedly to whatever you do.

When you’re cooking, you just cook. You don’t try to be a Michelin-star chef. You pour love and care into the food. When you’re speaking, you just speak. You don’t try to sound smart or spiritual. And when you’re meditating, you just sit. You don’t aim for altered states. You use yourself up fully, so no residue of identity or intellect remains. That’s the key to happiness.

But we live in an insincere society. It’s not just the prevalent lies. It’s the habit people have of talking about what they themselves haven’t experienced. Folks weigh in on how you should be living, but when you take a step back, you see that most of them haven’t found any great happiness. So why take their advice? Would you take financial advice from someone in debt? No. So don’t take life-advice from people who may know stuff but aren’t sincere about polishing their own hearts.

The essence of sincerity is letting go of what we think we know in order to inhabit the present moment more fully. Virginia Woolf said that the secret to good writing is paying attention to the rhythm of words. In other words, you put aside, at least at first, your desire to make sense, and you let the music of language take you to feelings and ideas you haven’t thought of before.

Life is exactly like that. If you try to figure it out in advance, the finished product will be tight and tense. But if you follow sincerely the rhythm of your breath, the rhythm of your body, the rhythm of the hours, you will learn more than any self-help book could ever teach.