What is Zen? And how can it help us shape the future?

Zen is about turning toward all aspects of our life, including the parts that aren't fun, that aren't pleasant. Zen is about sitting still in meditation and turning toward the ankle pain that starts to come up, right? And really noticing it. Or turning toward that anger that we started to feel at a driver who cut us off in traffic and really noticing it, noticing the anger grow and then pass away. Zen reminds us that nobody's happy all the time and that that's not the goal of life. That in fact, one of my teachers used to say, happiness is an accident, but Zen practice can make us more accident-prone. So we can learn to set up the conditions for more and more well-being. And I wouldn't want to expect myself to be happy if something upsetting happens. I want to feel everything just as it arises, and that's what Zen practice teaches us to do.