Re-featuring a Zen proverb:

"There was a man
who was so distubred
by the sight of his own shadow
and so displeased with his own footsteps
that he determined to get rid of both.

The method he hit upon was to run away from them.
So he got up and ran.

But every time he put his foot down
there was another step,while his shadow kept up with him
without the slightest difficulty.

He attributed his failure
to the fact that he was not running fast enough.
So he ran faster and faster, without stopping,
until finally he dropped dead.
He failed to realize
that if he merely stepped into the shade,
his shadow would vanish,
and if he sat down and stayed still,
there would be no more footsteps."

`Chuang-Tzu

Zen practice blocks the impulse to run away from reality. It provides us with "shade," it lets us examine the moment perfectly so we might realise that the footsteps we are running from are our own.