Already Here

When
will the world open up again?

—

Never
will it be as it was.

—

Don’t wait
for the imagined
mending of future days.

Your true home
is already here.

—

Sitting still
at home,
the Temple
wholeheartedly
finds you.

Sesshin Begins

Retreat began last night yet the Temple is empty this morning. It’s never been like this before.

Forty-one of us gathering on Zoom from around the northeast and with a few brave souls from the UK and Europe for whom the retreat began at 1 a.m.

Coming together to practice—to look into the great matter of life-and-death—to support each other as we swim upstream toward the source world. Not a small intention. Not an easy task.

I wake up conscious of my breath. In and out. In and out. On retreat again. This new retreat. This new moment. The ‘home practice assignment’ was to be conscious of the preciousness of being human. To be alert in the middle of the familiar. This is not what you think it is. Everything you encounter is your life.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

The window is slightly open. The birds began singing an hour ago—in the deepest dark they greet the day that has already come.

Now a unfamiliar song joins the chorus. A sustained trilling sound arises, then falls back into the joyous cacophony of hooting and calling. And again it rises. I listen eagerly and dream of frogs gracing the Temple pond.

In Praise of Being Stuck

The sky is gray and the leaves are wet from last night’s rain. I sit on the Temple porch, well wrapped against the coolness of the morning, but happy to be out here with the birds enjoying the soft leaves of the early spring.

It’s been over two months since I took up this practice of daily writing and this is my second morning of plein air writing. Yesterday a friend was kidding me about my dogged persistence and the pressure I have created for myself.

In her poem ‘Corners’, former United States Poet Laureate Kay Ryan begins:

All but saints
and hermits
mean to paint
themselves
toward an exit

leaving a
pleasant ocean
of azure or jonquil
ending neatly
at the doorsill.

But sometimes
something happens:

Though I am neither a saint nor a hermit, I have aspirations toward both and this daily writing practice has been a means to paint myself into a corner in order to discover something new.

Many years ago, I took a workshop with a well-know potter from Minnesota, Linda Christiansen. In her introductory remarks, as she was sitting in front of us effortlessly throwing a few mugs on the potter’s wheel to warm up, she asked us each to say a little about ourselves and our work in clay. But her request was very specific: “I’m not interested in what’s going well in your work, I’m interested in where you’re stuck.”

She went on to explain that these places where we are stuck, where we have run out of options, are the places where we have an opportunity to move into new territory, where we can go beyond the well-worn paths of habit and history.   The problem itself is the entry point into worlds of creativity and beauty.

In her poem, Kay Ryan cleverly speaks only of intention. ‘All but saints / and hermits / mean to paint themselves / toward an exit’. Of course, whatever our intention, we all find ourselves stuck. We may have had a good plan—for the project, for the day, for our lives—but it rarely goes the way we intended. We find ourselves again and again stuck. Beyond our careful intention to paint toward the doorsill, we find ourselves stuck in another corner.

From our small self-interested perspective, this is a problem. ‘I’m not getting what I want.’ ‘This isn’t what I signed up for.’ But we are all saints and hermits now, regardless of our intention. We are all stuck in this world of social distancing and collapsing economies. We are, each one, stuck in our houses or apartments without our usual escape routes. We are stuck in the middle of this pandemic with no clear doorsill to step back to ‘normal’—whatever that was.

So I’m writing again this morning. It’s always different and I’m learning to work with whatever arises. Even nothing arising turns out to be a trustworthy place to start.

Just this. Here is the doorway to the world of fullness.

Rumi also sings of this doorsill between worlds. He too invites us to wake up and enter right where we are.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
Where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
 

Personal Practice: Turn your attention toward an area of your current life in which your feel stuck. Describe it to yourself in detail. What is the situation? Who is involved? What is going on? What is the worst part of it? Notice what thoughts, images and feelings arise as you explore this intractable situation.

What if this isn’t a problem? What if this situation is a doorway inviting you to step beyond your ancient histories and old patterns into some new world? You don’t have to believe anything. Just wonder for a while. Notice what happens.

The Next Shock

The California State University system and Magill University in Montreal have decided that their students will not return to the classroom this fall. All classes will be online. This is a catastrophic decision for these institutions and I am certain that many more will follow. While I have no special connection to either of these great institutions, when I read the news, I almost cried. I had hoped residential schools would find a way to re-open in the fall. Some still may, but many won’t.

The decision to only have online classes is an admission by the leadership teams of these highly respected institutions, that there will be no way to safely bring large groups of people back into dormitories until a vaccine is developed and widely available. Given the disastrous financial and institutional costs, and assuming the intelligence and creativity of these leaders, we can assume that they felt there was no option. No work-around. No radical change in behavior or policy that would have made it safe for them to gather and house their students anytime in the fall.

All institutions of learning are facing this same issue. September is three months away. The President is saying we must get back to business. Many health experts and other leaders are warning of dire consequences if we move back too quickly.

The pandemic has not overwhelmed us yet, but we are caught in an ongoing crisis that is neither yielding to our optimistic projections nor playing out our nightmare scenarios. Things are really bad. More people are out of work than the Great Depression. Whole sectors of the economy are nearly completely shut down with no reasonable expectation of when they will reopen. We’re wearing (or supposed to be wearing) masks every time we leave our houses. We still can’t worship in our churches, go out to eat or hug the people we love.

It could be much worse. We have indeed, for now, flattened the curve of infection. Here in Massachusetts, all the indicators, number of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths are slowly declining. We have avoided the collapse of our health care systems. Through creative and extraordinary efforts, our hospitals and health systems have geared up enough emergency response capacity and the social distancing measures seem to have had a significant impact. This is all good.

But we now find ourselves in an ongoing state of crisis with no easy answers. The leaders I trust are saying that restarting the economy can only happen safely if the indicators continue to decline AND we have widespread testing AND contact tracing capacity to deal with the inevitable new infections that will arise.

This virus is not going away on its own. Social distancing is our new way of life until a vaccine is developed and widely available. People who know about these things say this is possible within a year or two.

A year or two of this! How will we manage? How do we go on as human beings without the balm of the physical proximity we are so reliant on? How do we live with a future that does not include some of the things we value most?

I pose these questions to myself then sit here in my corner chair without knowing how to answer. The cheap plastic analogue clock on the desk next to me ticks away, oblivious to my quandary. The desk itself easily holds my usual clutter of papers, folders, plants and mugs half-filled with undrunk tea. I stare at the screen of my laptop and notice my breath.  Sunlight illumines the leaves of the katsura trees outside my window.

For some reason, Walt Whitman’s words come to my mind:

All truths wait in all things,
They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,
They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon,
The insignificant is as big to me as any,
(What is less or more than a touch?)
Logic and sermons never convince,
The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.

For today, they will have to suffice.

Personal Practice: What if there were no future. What if today, this very day, were the last one of your life? It’s a silly exercise, but it might be true and indeed some day it will be true. (I’m reminded of Woody Allen’s joke complaining about the restaurant: The food was terrible….and the portions were so small.) All of this will end and wise teachers have counseled us for millennia that this very life with all its troubles and insoluble problems is precious beyond compare. Don’t miss a moment.

Changing Perspectives

The predicted storms did not arrive until the afternoon. The sky was clear and the sun was bright. I was pulling weeds by the front fence near the street. Even the mailman affirmed as he walked by, it was a good morning to be out in the garden.

But the story starts a little over ten years ago when we began re-creating the gardens of the old mansion we bought to turn into a Zen Temple. The acre of surrounding grounds had been landscaped and cared for in the late 80’s, then neglected for the next twenty years. We loved the curving brick walkway and the eight-sided gazebo that sat under the trees in the back. Much thought had been given to this space; a number of large rocks strategically placed and quite a few robust rhododendron and azalea had survived the years of neglect.   But other areas were abandoned to weeds, bramble and the varied litter of a forest floor.

We cut back the overgrowth and found the weeping cherry tree, built the front access ramp around it, then found the two-ton stone Buddha to sit in front of this lovely specimen. But a lot of the area under the trees was bare and we were looking for ground cover. One helpful member of our community brought some lily-of-the-valley from her garden. She said it was a hearty ground cover that did well in shade or sun. I remembered the sweet smelling bell-like white flowers from my childhood and was happy for her donation.

The ten or twelve little lily-of-the-valley plants survived and thrived where little else would grow. For the first many years, I was happy to see their bright green leaves poking up in April with the white fragrant blossoms not far behind. But then the worm slowly turned. (We actually have tons of worms in the garden here and I suppose they are always turning, but this was one worm who turned not in a good way.) I began to notice the green patches of lily-of-the-valley beginning to encroach on other ground covers and plants that I preferred. I did occasional weeding and mostly ignored the creeping threat.

Over the past two years, however, it has gone to another level. All of the gardens along the western fence are now infested with lily-of-the-valley. Spreading through underground runners, it weaves a tangled mass that surrounds and kills other small plants. Removing one or two shoots does nothing to slow its advance.

Last year I got serious had one of our volunteer garden workers remove this pest from the front gardens. And experienced gardener, she dug deep and removed masses of roots. After several hours of hard work she managed to remove all the lily-of-the-valley from that area of the garden.

This year, I have set the same volunteer and two others to work on the other hot spots further back. As she was weeding, she casually asked me how the front was. I reassured her that they were clear due to her hard work. But a day later, I actually looked and realized I was wrong. Large patches of lily-of-the-valley had not only had survived but were spreading again. And that’s where I started in the glorious sun of yesterday morning.

To remove lily-of-the-valley, you have to dig about ten inches down to get below the mass of roots. Then you reach in and pull and shake as you trace the roots and remove the roots. The tender early spring green shoots belie the determined mat of roots lurking beneath the surface. It’s messy physical work.

I had a wonderful time.

As I worked, in the warmth of the sun, my neighbor stopped by.   He was out for his morning constitutional in his bandana-like mask. We talked about the weather and this endless pandemic. We exchanged stories of going to the grocery store—all from a safe distance. Another garden helper also stood ten feet away as we chatted about the beauty and variety of daffodils as we shared the beautiful garden. It was almost like normal.

I dug up two large buckets of lily-of-the-valley roots, appreciated the endless quality of my task and was greatly satisfied.

This is only a start but the worm has turned once more. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by this sweet smelling competitor, I am looking forward to many more mornings of sitting in the garden digging, getting dirty and working to create the space for other things to grow and thrive.

Personal Practice: In this time of limited physical contact with each other, what are the physical activities that you still do? Pay attention today to the physicality of preparing your food – the sounds and textures, the smells and associations. Be present to the touch of the bowls as you remove them from the cabinet, to the sound of the silverware as you take it from its drawer or the cereal as it clatters from the box into its waiting bowl. Work in your garden. Make your bed. Sweep the floor. Appreciate what you have to do. Everywhere is touching and being touched. Everything you encounter is your life.

Teaching and Learning the Next Thing

I once had the privilege of working with an organizational change consultant when I was head of Dynamy, a small gap year school here in Worcester, MA. He had worked with many large organizations but was very helpful to our small team. Apparently the patterns of human interaction apply whether there are two or two hundred people on your team. Even a team of one, I have found, is enough be problematic. Even when it’s just you, in your apartment or in your life, you still have a challenging team to work with—all the many parts of yourself.

At Dynamy, we were trying to improve our performance as a team. We did well enough, but I wanted less struggle and more ease in how we worked together—how we did all the things we had to do to provide support for young people to learn and grow. It was clear to me that we, as adults, had to keep learning and growing in order to allow the young people to do the same.

My conviction came from my own intuition and from a longitudinal study that was begun in the 1930’s. The researchers in this study tracked students from very different kinds of secondary schools for several decades to see if they could determine what kinds of schools, traditional or progressive, were better for the students. They found no discernable difference based on school philosophy, but did find a significant correlation between the quality of education and schools that had recently changed their educational model. Schools that had recently or were in the process of change were better for the students. My take away was that those were the schools with engaged faculty, where the teachers were learning and growing along with the students.

Emerson put it this way ‘Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear a word you’re saying.’ It’s not our eloquent words, but rather something deeper that is the real communication. Recent studies of infant behavior confirm this observation. Little human beings are masters of imitation. Long before language emerges, babies are masters of watching and mimicking. Our biggest impact on our children and even the world is not what we say, but what we do. I would take it further to say it’s not what we do, but who we are.

I try to take this quite personally. While the words I speak and the actions I take are important, the real teaching and giving happens at a more subtle level. I suppose this is bad news and good news. The bad news is that the reality of my inner life is not always clear and straightforward. I consistently am not as wise and compassionate as I would wish.

The good news is that I don’t have to rush around doing things and making sure I am reaching enough people or giving enough Dharma talks. I don’t have to solve our organizational challenges and make sure everything holds together. My job as leader, parent, grandparent and teacher is to pay attention to what is right here. In doing the work of this moment, whether weeding the garden or writing an email, I am making my biggest impact on the world.

My job is not to be perfect. (Mission accomplished.) My job is to be willing to change. (Still in progress.) The important question is not how to get those other people to change, but am I willing to change? Am I willing to keep learning and growing—to keep leaving behind old certainties and moving into what is emerging now? This is the spirit that allow us to be truly help others.

Personal Practice: Think of one team that you’re part of that you would like to change in some way. It could be the ‘team’ of your family or a work team or your apartment mates or your relationship with a friend. What is the change you would like to see? Your first answer to this question may likely be something to do with other people behaving differently. Looking beyond that, ask yourself: ‘What is one small step I could take that might lead toward change?’ It might be some kind of inward shift. It might be some specific action. Do it. Be it. Notice what happens.

Speaking of the Weather

Small white flakes drift lazily down, almost invisible against the frilly pink blossoming buds of the crabapple tree. It won’t amount to much, this snow on the second Saturday of May, but it sure is a great conversation starter.

I used to think conversations about the weather were a form of avoidance; that it was better to get to the heart of the matter and talk about important things. But in our world of limited social contact, I am more appreciative of the nurturing and mysterious function of being in each other’s presence. Perhaps talking about the weather is simply a way to make it socially acceptable to be in each other’s presence for a while.

My new life of Zoom meetings has reinforced my belief in the primarily unconscious nature of human communications. We can easily assume it’s about the words, but it’s not. We think if we make the right argument, our spouse will suddenly see the truth of our opinion about how the baked potatoes really should be cooked. Even when we’re by ourselves, as many of us are these days, words appear in our mind to defend and shore up our positions and opinions.

But email has proven beyond a doubt that words themselves are a very limited vehicle for conveying the fullness of human meeting. I’ve had so many email misunderstandings that I’ve decided that if my communication contains any difficult emotional content at all, I should do it over the phone or in person. Though I can write a clear critique of what you did or said and feel complete in my expression, that expression rarely comes across as I intended and equally rarely moves the relationship toward deeper understanding.

And now Zoom. I read an article yesterday on why time on Zoom is so exhausting. Though I can’t find the article now (when I searched I got lost in the myriad articles now available about the challenges of Zooming) the gist of it was that without the usual unconscious signals that happen in person, we have to work much harder on Zoom. We’re not being nurtured by each other’s presence, we’re not getting the thousands of micro-signals we’re used to and it’s much harder to know if we’re safe and to know where we stand with each other in this flat form of social interaction.

The article also reported that simply seeing an image of ourselves is stressful for most of us. When I mentioned this to a friend, he said he’s found the Zoom control that eliminates his picture from his screen and still shows it to others. My immediate thought was that I need to know how I look and how I’m being seen on Zoom to be able to have a sense of how I’m coming across. Then I realized how different this is from my experience of talking and being with people in person. In the ‘face-to-face’ conversations I’m almost never aware of my face and overall appearance. I have the luxury, in person, of focusing on the person in front of me and on whatever is emerging in the moment, which almost never includes seeing my face.

But back to the weather, which I’m happy to write about this fine spring morning. The snow continues but seems to have no intention toward accumulation—content to be blown this way and that before touching the green earth and vanishing. And the crabapple buds and blossoms are unfazed by the mini white drama.

Personal Practice: Next time you are in physical proximity with someone, whether it’s on a six-foot walk with a friend or with someone you’re sheltering-in-place with, see if you can sense what is going on between you without words. It will, by definition, be subtle and rather intangible. No matter what you sense, can you appreciate and receive the mysterious and nurturing communication that goes on without words? Can you lean into this capacity we have as humans to give and receive without saying a word? If you’d like, you can also talk about the weather.