How to Find Your Flow — Even if You’re Stuck in a Rut
When the Ego is in charge — there can be no Flow
Flow is simple to think about; it’s a state of not knowing, not caring. It’s like stepping into a flowing river that you don’t fight, you just allow the motion of the river to take you.
In Zen, we are advised to simply sit. That’s Zen — or better expressed through the word, Zazen.
Taisen Deshimaru, the Zen master and one of the last true Samurais from the Sōtō school, always kept his teaching simple.
Learn to sit Zen, be quiet, pay no attention to your thoughts and achieve a peaceful state of mind. This can happen when we are in action, too.
When Taisen Deshimaru wrote his book, “The Ring of the Way”, on Zen and martial Arts, he combined the ideas of the peacefulness of a Zen life with great effort. It is a book about action, about how to live with a Zen spirit.
The book helps us to approach life with a calm spirit and a body fit for action.
A peaceful mind is a state of flow. If we attempt to control “flow” we are not in flow.
Being in control, is the ego at work.
The ego gets us into trouble.
It’s the over curious mind that beckons us along pathways into deep thoughts about everything and anything — it makes everything in our mind over-important. So we follow it down rabbit-holes.
When we live in flow — in harmony with ourselves — we can apply effort and spirit together. Body and mind as one — they are not separate.
The body experiences the same life as the mind.
It is our philosophical way of thinking that separates everything for us, and causes us to think in component parts about life, the world, and other people. Really, we are all one Thing.
“During zazen, brain and consciousness become pure. It is like a muddy glass of water left to stand. Little by little, the sediment sinks to the bottom, and the water becomes pure.” Taisen Deshimaru
When we work in the state of flow, we allow the sediment of life to fall away. we become pure in our focus, we control nothing, and we trust our mind to stay in one place.
The writer, Aldous Huxley, said that when he entered a state of flow, or free-thinking, it was as if he had cast aside all anchors. Then, a state of orderly mentality took place which allowed a state of flow to overwhelm him.
Huxley was an avid self-observer. He constantly made notes on his mental states.
There is something Zen about the state of flow. If we achieve it, we will be in a mental place where we don’t concern ourselves with everyday nonsense, and we can carry out tasks — like writing, photography, business, study, and lots more, without the hindrance of the ego.
Flow allows the mind to function in clarity. It discludes the rest of the world and its problems.
We are fully focussed on the moment, and the effort that we exert into the task at hand is powerful, it is not dissipated through many different thoughts.
It takes practice to achieve flow.
It takes practice to be in flow and not notice that we are in flow. We don’t need to know that we are in flow any more than we need to know that we are sleeping.
Flow is a pure action. It is present when we are fully embroiled in our work, there is no objectivity to the state of flow — we are flow when flow happens.
It’s afterwards, when we stop, and return to the normality of everyday bluster and chaos, that we realise that we have been in a different place in our mind.
The ego is our “better-knower” self. Ego always interferes with instincts that we have developed and honed over years. Instincts can be skills that are innate, or learned without knowing that we have learned them.
“Go with the flow, you can’t control the whole sea, all you can control is your own boat”
The ego will always want to control the sea and the boat. It will strive to manipulate and control the captain — the ego is not the captain, it’s second mate — it shouldn’t be giving the orders.
Forgetting helps. If we begin some work, forget the world, our problems, then we are in a position to achieve flow. We will enter a state of mental flow if we practise our approach to work.
What is more important? To start and finish the work with quality and efficiency, or know that you are working?
Forgetting other things in daily life helps us to enter flow, or concentration. As time passes, we will achieve relaxation that allows us to be wakeful and alert to the task, but deeply focussed on the work.
