I'm someone who is rarely capable of settling down and enjoying where I'm at. I like to think things are moving along, that I'm getting somewhere. In terms of Zen, this is making all kinds of trouble for myself. After all, shouldn't I just be happy with my job? It is Buddha activity after all, as much as my next job will be. Shouldn't Zen allow me to be right where I am without adding extra confusion or suffering? Well, kind of, yes. But on the other hand, if I am malcontented, I can also find my Buddha nature in that. If I feel the need for change, that's the way it is. To pretend that I'm content would be foolish. It would also be untrue.
There is a particular criticism of Zen and similar practices that I never really understand, which suggests that if everyone were to suddenly feel contented and whole where they were, various social ills and causes would never be addressed. But to feel whole is not to lose your passions. The people that would be politically inactive anyway would still be inactive perhaps. But the revolutionaries, the passionately engaged ones would feel whole in exactly what they were doing too, so there'd be no reason for the process of political liberation to suddnely halt. I am living, coughing proof of that. Not that I'm a political activist. But I still agitate about my own condition: I am a true worrier of Zen.
