A Zen teacher of mine once said, “Everything in your life is training. Everything.”

What did he mean by that?

Perspective #1

There is no arriving point to your life. Each moment is an opportunity to engage with what’s in front of you, right now. Even when you are planning for future events, you are present and engaged with the process. You are anchored in the “now.”

Perspective #2

How we sit and meditate is the same way we live. In other words, we bring the same posture, breath, awareness, and clarity from the cushion into our everyday actions—especially the mundane habitual activities. That process of “cushion-to-life” is our training.

Perspective #3

Our life is suffering, so we must train to alleviate, make peace with, or transcend the suffering.

Regardless of the perspective, when everything in your life is training, it eliminates, or at least lessens, a life of dissatisfaction.