Riccardo

A few days ago, I found myself reflecting on the word normal.

What does it really mean?

Normal according to whom?

Compared to what?

If I get up at five in the morning to go cycling, some people might consider that normal. Others might think it’s absurd.

If I meditate every day, for some people that’s perfectly normal. For others, it isn’t.

The very same action can be normal or abnormal depending on who is observing it.

Then the reflection took another direction.

We often say that things are the same or different.

The road I ride every morning is the same road.

And yet it is not the same.

The trees have grown a little.

The light is different.

I myself am different.

But is it really that simple?

To say that something is the same, I have to compare it with something else.

To say that something is different, I have to do exactly the same thing.

In both cases, I am measuring.

I am creating a relationship between two images, two memories, two ideas.

But before the comparison?

Before the mind says “same” or “different”?

What is it?

Perhaps it is simply this road.

This sky.

This breath.

This ride.

Neither the same nor different.

Simply what it is.

In Zen practice, we often encounter this invitation: to see what is present before the mind begins dividing the world into categories.

Normal or abnormal.

Right or wrong.

Success or failure.

Same or different.

Categories have their usefulness. They help us navigate everyday life.

But when we forget that they are only categories, we begin to mistake them for reality itself.

Then the road is no longer just a road.

It becomes “the same road as yesterday.”

The sky is no longer simply the sky.

It becomes “more beautiful” or “less beautiful.”

Life is no longer simply life.

It becomes a continuous comparison with what we remember or what we imagine.

And yet, from time to time, during a walk, a bicycle ride, or simply while looking out of a window, a different kind of moment may appear.

A moment in which there is nothing to compare.

Nothing to measure.

Nothing to define.

Only what appears, just as it is.