Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World

Book excerpt: A Zen study wrapped in a memoir of destruction and healing written by an elite ultrarunner as she struggles to make it to the other side of a life-shattering injury with her sanity, and her marriage, intact After flipping her raft days away from help on a trip down the remote Salmon River, Katie Arnold’s shattered leg tests both her spirit and her marriage for years to come. It also reignites her meditation practice and motivates her to dive into Zen in search of healing. Before the accident, Katie was an elite ultrarunner with a simmering but adequate marriage who avoided being indoors whenever possible. But who is she afterwards? In the midst of hardship, Katie turns for support to the Zen practice she had long dabbled in. Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World is a Zen study wrapped in a memoir that tells the story of a search for stillness by a woman born for wildness. Spanning roughly two years, from shortly before the accident through the long, uncertain healing of both leg and marriage, it is a personal narrative of that tumultuous time nested inside meditations on Zen. Having gone from a reluctant spiritualist to a Zen practitioner over the course of a decade, Katie Arnold offers unique company for those seeking nature’s exquisite highs as well as for creatives, spiritualists, and sensualists who want to slow down and examine the possibilities of a well-lived life. As the late Japanese master Shunryu Suzuki wrote, “Sometimes a flashing will come through the dark sky.” These brief flashings are enlightenment—moments when we suddenly feel as if we’re part of everything, and everything’s part of us. This book is about how to experience the flashings when they come, and about what they mean for how we live our lives.