I have just spent some time travelling, finding myself in situations and places I didn’t know, chatting with people I’d never met before, and eating food I’d never tried.

Basically, I spent a few days dealing with things I would easily consider unfamiliar: heavy tropical rain, turbulent flights, higher humidity and temperatures than I’m used to in Europe, eating food from banana leaves, and so on.

There is something interesting about unfamiliarity that can make our practice much more vivid and help us gain some clarity.

Normally, when we’re at home, surrounded by things we know, it’s very easy not to notice how quickly the mind responds to an experience. We know the routines. We know the food. We know how things work. A lot of the time, we simply run on autopilot.

But put yourself somewhere unfamiliar and suddenly that movement of the mind becomes much easier to see.

Something happens, and almost immediately the mind has something to say about it:

I like this.

I don’t like this.

This is strange.

This is uncomfortable.

I wish this would stop.

I hope this is safe.

While I was away, exposed to all the things a new place can offer, I was reminded of a very well-known Zen story, Case 29 of the Mumonkan.

Two monks were watching a flag flapping in the wind.

One said, “The flag is moving.”

The other said, “The wind is moving.”

They argued back and forth until Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch, said:

“It is not the wind that moves. It is not the flag that moves. It is your mind that moves.”

What is really moving?

This is one of those teachings that can very easily become an interesting philosophical discussion.

But I don’t think that’s what Huineng was pointing to.

The wind moves.

The flag moves.

Of course they do.

Huineng wasn’t interested in taking sides. He wasn’t saying, “You are right and you are wrong.” In fact, at one level, they were both right.

What the Sixth Patriarch was pointing to was something much closer than either the flag or the wind.

He was inviting the monks to notice what happens in the mind when an experience appears.

And that is exactly what travelling had been showing me very clearly: the attachment we can have to what arises in the mind, to the ideas, judgements and stories appearing within our consciousness.

Zen practice isn’t about stopping the wind, holding the flag still, or somehow preventing the mind from moving.

It is about becoming intimate with that movement.

Seeing how quickly a judgement arises.

How quickly we compare.

Prefer.

Resist.

Hope.

Fear.

And perhaps discovering that we don’t always have to follow what arises.

The unfamiliar as practice

A holiday can give us a wonderful opportunity to see this because so much is unfamiliar. The mind has less chance to run on autopilot.

Heavy tropical rain comes, and immediately:

Do I like this?

How long is this going to last?

Should I have come?

The body encounters heat and humidity, and the mind compares it with what it knows:

This is too hot.

This is uncomfortable.

We eat something we’ve never tasted before. For a moment, perhaps, there is simply taste.

And then:

I like this.

I don’t like this.

This is strange.

The taste itself hasn’t asked us for an opinion. There is simply tasting. There is simply an experience. It is simply what we are living in that moment.

But an opinion has already appeared.

At one point, I found myself high above the ground.

Fear arose.

The body tightened.

The heart beat faster.

Nothing was actually happening, but thoughts about possible dangers came rushing in.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, of course. We need our ability to recognise danger.

But those thoughts can also split the actual experience—the reality of the moment as it is—into something completely different. A mental movie can begin, taking us away from things as they are.

We can mentally turn the reality of a moment into something else entirely.

There was no need to get rid of the thoughts or the fear, or pretend they weren’t there.

The practice was simply to notice my attachment to those mental formations.

When movement becomes truth

The mind is quite capable of producing stories about every experience we have.

This is why I think this koan is so important. Huineng is pointing towards something that doesn’t happen only occasionally, or only when we sit in meditation.

It happens all the time.

We are constantly meeting experience and reacting to it. And often we react because of some attachment we have to what is arising within us.

There is nothing inherently wrong with our reactions. The mind is doing what minds do.

The difficulty begins when we don’t see movement as movement.

A thought appears and becomes the truth.

A preference becomes how things should be.

An opinion becomes something that needs defending.

Fear becomes something that has to disappear before we can be okay.

The two monks show us this beautifully.

Somewhere along the way, the flag and the wind were no longer really the issue.

The issue became:

I am right.

You are wrong.

There is nothing wrong with liking certain things more than others. There is nothing wrong with having preferences, opinions, ideas, or even strong convictions.

But when we hold on to them too tightly, too personally, when we become too invested in them, something changes.

We are no longer experiencing life simply as it is. We are experiencing it through the mental formations we have created around it.

Suddenly I’m not simply having an opinion.

I need my opinion to be right.

And perhaps I need yours to be wrong.

More importantly, I may be preventing myself from actually living the experience as it is.

The rain is falling, but I don’t want rain. Instead of experiencing the moment as it is, all my energy goes into frustration, regret, blame or wishing things were different.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look for an umbrella.

It means noticing our attachment to the idea that this moment should somehow be different from the way it is.

And that is where so much of our dissatisfaction comes from.

A very practical teaching

This is where the koan becomes a very practical teaching.

We don’t need to analyse every thought that appears.

We don’t need to ask where every reaction came from.

And we certainly don’t need to stop thoughts, preferences, judgements or emotions from arising.

Instead, when something catches us during the day—particularly something that creates a strong reaction—we can pause for a moment and notice the attachment we might have towards that reaction.

Are we becoming separate from what is happening, or simply experiencing the moment as it is?

Are we going to stick with our ideas?

Or are we going to simply live this moment the way it is?

Becoming curious about our own experience can energise our practice.

What does this movement of the mind actually feel like?

Where is the judgement? How does it feel?

Where is the resistance? How does it feel?

Where is the fear? How does it feel?

Not because any of these things are wrong.

But because seeing them clearly can give us a little space.

And in that space, we might discover that we have a choice.

We can fully experience this moment as it is without immediately attaching an idea, description or label to it.

Or we can follow our attachment to whatever is arising and experience the same moment with resistance and a sense of separation.

We can still disagree with somebody.

We can still prefer sunshine to rain.

We can still dislike turbulence.

We can still act when something needs changing.

Of course.

Zen practice doesn’t turn us into passive people without opinions or preferences. In fact, opinions can sometimes be of great service to a situation.

Huineng didn’t tell the monks, “You shouldn’t have opinions about what moves what.”

He simply invited them to notice what was really moving—and to notice how attached they had become to their own ideas.

Notice your own flag

On one hand, we can debate whether it is the flag or the wind moving. We can have an opinion about it, and that’s perfectly fine.

But from a non-separate standpoint, here we are.

This moment, just as it is.

No separation between the wind, the flag, the monks, or the experience itself.

The separation appears when the mind begins to divide the experience and then attaches itself to one particular description of it.

And that’s why I think this koan is worth carrying around with us.

Not as something to solve.

Not as something to understand intellectually.

But as something to practise.

Later, during your meditation, tomorrow, or at any time really, notice your own flag.

Notice your own wind.

Notice whether you become attached to either of them, or whether you can simply experience the movement, the sitting, the breathing.

Perhaps remember Huineng:

It is not the wind that moves.

It is not the flag that moves.

It is your mind that moves.

The wind can move.

The flag can move.

The mind can move.

The practice is simply not to hold on quite so tightly.

Not to become too attached to what moves, but simply to move with it.