When I used to work in restaurant kitchens, the service periods were insanely busy. “Busy” doesn’t even really capture it. The French call these periods the “coup de feux”, the firefight, because that’s about what it feels like. It’s a transcendental experience because it puts you to an oddly serene frame of mind. There is no room for thought; there’s just the doing. You become exquisitely responsive and attuned to everything around you, vividly alive. It’s the state soldiers report from being in a firefight. I know lots of guys who adore the coup de feux because of that transcendence.
Ironically, that same transcendence is there when I’m doing absolutely nothing. In meditation, when there’s no activity at all and no thought of doing anything, there’s the same responsiveness and awareness.
It’s in the in-between times, when I have the idea that I’m doing this or that, and have the time to think about it, that it’s hardest to be in touch with the transcendence. Then I’m more likely to feel all the cares of self-concern.