Live. Laugh. Love. Vomit.

I stacked these rocks myself, oblivious at the time of the horror to come.

I took the above picture while on vacation with my family. A few short hours later, I was violently vomiting off the side of a boat.

While I was doing my best to turn inside-out, I couldn’t help but shamefully reflect back on this picture, a picture that I had every intention of sharing on Instagram. I chastised myself for how I couldn’t wait to come up with some beautiful Zen-like caption that, while it wouldn’t say, “Live. Laugh. Love.” (not exactly, anyway), it would absolutely say that.

Then suddenly, in between my prayers for the boat to stop rocking and my curses at the boat for continuing to rock, it dawned on me that the entire episode really was Zen, I was just missing half of it.

Zen is not three rocks on a beach, but Zen is three rocks on a beach AND vomiting off the side of a boat. Zen is all of it — the whole enchilada (or in my case, quesadilla).

These days, Zen has become synonymous with spa-worthy beauty and tranquility, but traditional Zen teachings point to the less picturesque side of life at least as often as the beautiful stuff. For example, Zen koans include all sorts of not-so-pretty scenarios, like a Zen master violently snatching a mischievous child off the street and chopping off his finger, or the Venerable World-Honored Buddha being referred to as an old, dried-up piece of excrement.

The famous Zen ensō (the paint-brushed circle) symbolizes the full picture of what Zen teaches, declaring that everything, the entirety of life is contained within the circle, nothing is rejected, not waves crashing on a beach, not rocks beautifully posed in the sand, and not humbled Buddhist teachers sonorously chumming the ocean. All are expressions of the harmony of life exactly as it is.

I only know life’s joy because I intimately know its sorrow. I only know that life is precious because I know that it passes. These things aren’t separate conflicting experiences, instead they are complements, dramatic foils in life’s unfolding drama. It’s the vomiting off the boat that creates the beauty of the rocks on the beach, just as it’s the beauty of the rocks on the beach that create the horror of vomiting off a boat (which created this very article as well as any thoughts you may have on it). It’s all one thing — nothing is rejected, nothing is separate.

The most important thing, though, is that this is only a concept to which Zen teachings point. It’s only a “finger pointing to the moon,” as the Zen folks say; it isn’t the moon itself. What is truly special is the “something” that emerges on its own when the fullness and completeness of life — the oneness of it — is glimpsed, even if for only a moment, the palpable mysterious wonder that passes beyond words.

And now, without any further ado, I present to you my photo’s Zen-inspired caption. Hopefully, this captures the scene in a way that is much more aligned with the full spirit of Zen:

Live. Laugh. Love. Vomit. Repeat.

#blessed