Delighted and Unmoved

The granite stone Buddha that was carved out of a Chinese mountain has sat for twelve years in front of the weeping cherry tree by the entrance to the Boundless Way Temple. Through snow storms and sunshine, through harmony and discord—he is unfazed and serene. The white cherry blossoms have come again this year—behind his back like an artificial Zoom background that flickers on-screen for a moment, only to disappear back to the mundane branches and leaves.

Briefly. Just a week—two at most. But reliable as a stone that falls from your hand when you unclasp your grip.

Usually, the two ton stone Buddha and his background would have had quite an appreciative audience this weekend, but our Zen retreat was on-line again so only I and a few Temple Garden visitors have witnessed the silent magic trick. An umbrella of delicate white blossoms, complete with buzzing bees, happy for the early spring nourishment. As for me, it’s nectar too, this dependably extravagant display of fragile beauty. I look long and long, trying to understand and receive the wisdom of such largess.

I saw the tight buds begin swelling slightly in the early spring. Eventually some small white came to the tip of the buds. Then the first few blossoms that could not contain themselves burst into light followed by all the others tumbling open over the next twenty-four hours. From within their tightly packed space capsules, their wondrous white petals deployed with papery finesse—showing no signs of fatigue from their long dark journey within the bud.

But the stone Buddha forever faces away. Does he miss seeing this annual ritual of brief flowering behind is back? Or does the faint smile deepen ever so slightly on his granite lips? Can he hear the buzzing of the countless bees who have been summoned? Or the softest rustling of the delicate white petals? Perhaps he just delighted by the reflected wonder in the eyes of those of us that come to pay homage the brief miracle of the weeping cherry.

But however it is viewed or not viewed, the cherry tree never holds back. She offers her full display without gauging reactions or worrying about how long the run will be. Just a week or two is a full lifetime, then petals will drop and the tree will go on with green leaves as if it had been all a dream.

While the granite Buddha sits delighted and unmoved.

(Excerpted from forthcoming book Wandering Close to Home: A Year of Zen Reflections, Consolations, and Reveries. September 1, 2024.)

On Retreat Till Tuesday

I’m leading a Zen meditation retreat and have foresworn dancing, playing cards and writing.  (Just kidding about the dancing.)  I’ll resume writing on Tuesday but probably not playing cards until later in the week.

I’ve been trying to upgrade my email process related to these reflections, but a number of people have reported not receiving the usual posts over the past two weeks.  If you used to get these posts regularly and have suddenly not received any, please let me know at  DRynick@gmail.com.

Blessings,

David

Fan Letter For Joe

Amid the ongoing challenges of this country, I have been delighted and inspired by our new President, Joe Biden. I was one of the less-than-thrilled Democrats when he won the party’s nomination over the rest of the diverse and freshly faced field. Biden appeared to be a legacy of the old guard of well-meaning white guys who were trying to do good but were actually part of the institutional problem that led us to our current mess. But as a leader, he has taken bold step after bold step to act in alignment with the values that I believe are at the core of our experiment in democracy.

From the beginning, he has ignored the taunts and antics of the opposition and focused on both a message of respect for all as well as on policies and people that reflect the actual diversity and challenges of our changing nation. Beginning with his selection of Kamala Harris, a woman of Asian and Black heritage, to be his Vice-President going to his Executive Orders yesterday targeted to limit gun violence, he has shown great conviction combined with flawless political acumen in moving forward. He is realistic (e.g. not proposing showy gun regulations to Congress that have no realistic path forward in a nearly divided Senate) but willing to move forward in the face of intransigent opposition in whatever way is possible. Several times I have heard him quoted as saying ‘Politics is the art of what is possible,’ and ‘In politics, timing is everything.’

Biden is a surprising President. The clear and focused energy of his whole administration is a welcome change from the chaos and drama of his predecessor. While the Republicans continue to stoke the culture wars to rouse the anger of their base, Biden moves ahead with policies and legislation that are broadly popular with all Americans. The COVID relief bill and the proposed infrastructure legislation are confident and specific actions designed to benefit many. They are demonstrations of the capacity to use the government to support the values of justice, equality and compassion that have been part of our nation since its inception. If the previous President embodied the unbridled narcissistic individualism that is one thread of our national character (and all of us individually as well), this President seems to live out the flip side: respect, voluntary mutual support and innovative collective solutions for difficult problems.

Our national struggle with polarization, disinformation and ill-will continues. But President Biden is demonstrating a way forward. Rather than focus on what ‘they ‘ did or said, we keep focused on taking principled steps to move us all forward. Biden is using all of his considerable political acumen to work the levers of government to pass legislation and implement policies he believes will support all Americans. He is not waiting for the political consensus that will not come but using all the duly conferred power of his office and position to work for the good of the many. For those still under the spell of the past-President’s disinformation campaign about the election being rigged, no amount of arguing will win the point. Without focusing on calling the opposition names, without calling out the Republican Congressional leaders for their obstructionist and anti-democratic tactics, Biden is making his continuing case to the American people.

Part of me now wants to lean back in my chair and ‘let Joe do it.’ I’m not a naturally political person, I’d rather work in my garden, write about the weirdness and wonder of life and practice meditation. Now that we’re not on the edge of democratic collapse, my tendency is to get back to ‘normal’ life, but I remind myself that the challenges to our nation and our world are ongoing and urgent. We have only barely taken the first steps in unbuilding our national legacy of centuries of racial violence. Income inequality is directly stunting the lives of so many, including innumerable children who are perhaps our most precious resource for a sustainable future. The web of life of earth, air, and water that supports our very lives is in terrible distress and moving quickly in the wrong direction. Gun violence proliferates. Voting rights are threatened. COVID continues.

In the face of these innumerable and ongoing challenges, we must each continue to do what we can to rebuild the fabric of our social and physical world:

–Actively make a friend who is not ‘like you.’
–Write letters and emails to let your voice be heard
–Get involved to take action with others around you who share your concern
–Find ways to honor the humanity of each person even as you stand for truth, justice and compassion
–Do your own inner work
–Let your life be a reflection of what you love

And perhaps we can all channel our inner ‘Joe Biden’ – seemingly mild-mannered but surprising shrewd and powerful crusader for justice, compassion and the mutual dignity of all.

Avoiding Exertion

Taken as a whole, the findings suggest that the innate urge to avoid exertion plays a greater role in how all creatures, great and small, typically behave and navigate than we might imagine.

As I lean back in my antique barcalounger in the early morning, this seems true. These findings come from a study of grizzly bears that was recently reported in the New York Times in an article with the catchy title: Born to Be Lazy? What Bears Can Teach Us About Our Exercise Habits. The article begins (online) with a weirdly captivating video loop of a grizzly walking easily on an enclosed treadmill. I don’t know whether it’s the fluid elegance of the animal, or its size or the fact that it is being fed continuously through a small opening in the Plexiglas, but the video seems both oddly normal and totally bizarre. Apparently, a continuous stream of slices of hotdog and apple from a trainer is all it takes to keep a five-hundred pound animal on the move at a pretty good clip.

The article goes on to report the astonishing finding of another research project:

In a telling 2018 neurological study, for example, brain scans indicated that volunteers were far more attracted by images of people in chairs and hammocks than of people in motion.

I wonder if the ‘volunteers’ were fed a continuous stream of Oreos and chocolate chip cookies as they viewed the images? Or was it water and dry crackers? Were they too in Plexiglas cages? On treadmills? Barcaloungers? We don’t the details, but preferring hammocks and chairs to hard work doesn’t seem like a particularly ‘telling’ or unexpected finding.

But through tracking bears in the wild and enticing bears onto a treadmill in captivity, the authors of the grizzly study found out that bears only exert themselves for food—otherwise they take their time. Again, I’m struck by the common-sense aspect of this finding. Perhaps this study with grizzlies in captivity and in the wild needs a follow-up with us humans. Maybe I should apply for a grant to study the ‘innate urge to avoid exertion’. I would, of course, begin with myself.

I’m quite qualified to do such a study because I wonder a lot about laziness. In a culture that values speed and productivity, I’ve noticed that even walking slowly, sauntering, is a suspect activity. Resting and being at ease is discouraged and even considered dangerous in public places. Not having a specific purpose is called ‘loitering’ and is often classified as a crime – though I suspect ordinances like this are mostly enforced against young people, people of color and ‘others’ whose presence might disturb our ease and our obsession with productivity.

Many years ago, I had a neighbor come across the street to ask if I was alright. I happened to be lying on my back in my front lawn. Even as I lay there, looking up through the branches to the great blue sky, I was aware that this was probably not an approved activity in this or most other neighborhoods. Lying down and taking it easy is only for private spaces. I appreciated my neighbor’s genuine concern, one doesn’t like to let a neighbor die of a heart attack on the lawn across the street, and told her I was just taking a break from my gardening (a socially approved activity) to rest and feel the earth beneath me (a socially suspect non-activity) and gaze up through the branches to the sky (only allowed for the very young). I didn’t have the confidence and generosity to invite her to join me, but she was fine with my explanation. My take-away from this adventure was that unless you have a hammock or chaise lounge, lying around in public makes people nervous.

I’m not sure who I should apply to for funds to study this urge to avoid exertion, so I’ll have to begin by granting myself permission to claim small periods of time throughout the day for lolling and being unproductive. As I gather data and expertise, I may even expand my time periods or branch out into walking slowly while eating Oreos.

Making Our Selves

The barrel-chested guy was a master potter. Clay spinning on the wheel effortlessly rose under his hands and seemed eager to form itself into cylinders, bowls, jugs or whatever shape came into his mind. There were also erstwhile contestants, another judge and a hostess, but it was Keith, the master-potter-on-the-wheel, who has stayed with me even after the seven episodes of The Great Pottery Throw-down have completed.

In his judging of the contestants on different throwing and building challenges they were given, he was generally fair and articulate about their relative merits. But every once in a while some small detail of a piece would surprise him with the beauty of its proportions or strength of its creative expression and he would tear up. It probably happened only four or five brief moments over the course of the show, but it’s a memorable thing to see a grown man publicly moved to tears in response to beauty. (Only a slight choking up, mind you, if he had gone to full blubbering or wailing we would have worried about his mental health.)

I’m reminded of my high school band director, Mr. C. He too was fair and demanding. He would not hesitate to stop all thirty of us to correct some small variation of rhythm or missed cue from the saxophone section where I did my best to keep up. When he got really upset, he would tell us we sounded like a high school band—the ultimate insult in his book. During one memorable rehearsal that was near a concert and not going well, he stopped us and, without saying a word, got down on his knees on the floor and pounded the floor in lament.

Needless to say, this made a great impression on a high schoolboy. Not many of the adults in my life got this dramatic. I never quite understood Mr. C, but I knew he cared a lot and thought that something very important was within our grasp. The music he heard when he read the score was the beauty he tried to coax out of us. Personally, I was more concerned about looking cool with my buddy Jeff so we could impress Jackie and Pattie with our fifteen-year-old manliness in hopes of a few surreptitious kisses after rehearsal. But Mr. C clearly cared and felt there was some ephemeral beauty in music that was important enough for a man to be emotional about. I was impressed, wary and intrigued.

So Keith, our master-potter, attracted my attention. He had clearly devoted himself to a life of making clay vessels and had reached some pinnacle of accomplishment and recognition. But it was painful to watch him move. His head perched atop rigid shoulders and always seemed slightly in front of where it should be. I wouldn’t say he was deformed, but he was in the neighborhood. I don’t mean to make fun of how someone looks, but I had the sense that his restricted movement was one of the outcomes of his passionate pursuit of beauty and a livelihood through making clay forms. The years of bending over the potter’s wheel had not only molded countless clay vessels but had also molded the shape of his body.

I suppose our lives do this to us. Emerson (or was it Thoreau? or Einstein?) once said that after 40, a person’s face is their own creation. As we create and influence the world around us, we are in turn being influenced and created by that same world. The choices we make shape not just our lives, but our selves as well. It’s a subtle, complex and ongoing process.

I admire men (and women) who care about things and are willing to show it. I have learned that there is little return on playing it cool – though I have to admit that it is still my first instinct. Being vulnerable, being surprised by beauty, being touched by the tender heart of life—this is worth everything.

Instructions for Making a Small Outdoor* Sculpture

1. Wander around gently
2. Find a new place to sit down
3. Close your eyes and go dreamy for a few minutes
4. Receive whatever comes to your senses and your mind
5. Open your eyes and look easily around
6. Pick up the first seven things that catch your attention (and are pickup-able)
7. Place these seven on the ground near (or on top of) each other
8. Move them around until they come into an arrangement that pleases you in some way
9. Step back and take a picture of what you have created
10. Imagine that a dear friend has just sent this photo to you as a way of communicating something subtle
11. Consider what message or ‘tip’ from this image might be useful in your everyday life
12. Go about your business as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened

*may also be indoors as conditions warrant

(Excerpted from forthcoming book Wandering Close to Home: A Year of Zen Reflections, Consolations, and Reveries. September 1, 2024.)

The Fruits of Determined Study

For the past two years, I have been supporting a friend who has been studying words, language and texts. His interest and attention in the subject are variable as he is quite the polymath who also has a keen interest in the physics of everyday objects, the interpersonal psychology of the nuclear family, as well as in the biomechanics and expressive possibilities of the human body. With a finely tuned intelligence and ferocious curiosity, there’s practically nothing that doesn’t catch his attention and doesn’t become an object of study for him.

He’s one of those people who you just want to be around because, in their proximity, the world is a little brighter and more vivid. In his company, you see familiar things in new ways and stumble upon fresh perspectives to what is right in front of your eyes. He naturally embodies Suzuki Roshi’s wonderful teaching: “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”

Once we know what we are looking for, we miss most everything else. Once our opinion is settled, we cherry-pick the input of our senses—noticing only the evidence that supports our original supposition—and ignore the whole rest of the constantly emergent universe. This selective perception and confirmation bias is neither intentional nor a bad thing. Living in the world as we have come to know it from the past is a sign of a well-functioning human brain and is both normal and useful. Remembering where the bathroom is when you wake up in the morning is one of the under-appreciated miracles of most of our lives.

Wonder, on the other hand, is a very expensive human commodity. Wonder engages the whole brain in some new activity. Wonder inhibits the back channels of functional processing in order to allow information to be received and examined—not just unconsciously shuttled and sorted into the correct bin. Wonder holds what is perceived in a suspension of appreciation before allowing what has come before to fill in the contours and gaps.

My friend is an expert wonderer, but part of this wondering and exploring comes at the cost of everyday functioning. I don’t mean to put him down or cast aspersions on his character, but he is really not very good at taking care of even his most basic needs. Fortunately, he has two friends who are quite devoted to him and are willing to manage the practical details to give him the time and space to wonder about everything.

His progress on words, language, and texts has been both slow and astonishingly fast. There is one text he has been studying now for a little over two years. It’s a small mystical tome with brightly colored pictures accompanied by poetry. When we began studying it, he would look intently and listen carefully, but I was never sure what, if anything, he understood.

But just yesterday, when he woke up from his nap, we were once again investigating the text when he began saying the words himself—as if he could decipher the squiggled lines on the page. I began ‘Horn went beep / engine purred…’ and he, to my surprise, took over and completed the stanza: ‘prettiest sound / you ever heard.’

I turned to him, smiling in amazement. He smiled back at me with pride and delight—as if he knew this was a big deal. We then, together, followed the tense adventure of The Little Blue Truck and his friends through being stuck in the ‘muck and mire’ and beyond. I would say a line or a word, and he would complete the phrase. Magical.

This was the fruition of two years of study. I first read this book to him when he was just a few weeks old and I had to make sure his head wasn’t lolling off the side of my arm. I think we’re even on the second copy as the first one disintegrated with the gnawing on the edges and the repeated exuberant turning of the pages.

Yesterday was a milestone moment for me in understanding that he is beginning to crack the code. The narrative structure, the words, the meaning all are dancing between his two-year-old mind and my sixty-eight-year-old mind. Both of us continuing to delight in the words and images of life that arises between, within and around us all.

(Excerpted from forthcoming book Wandering Close to Home: A Year of Zen Reflections, Consolations, and Reveries. September 1, 2024.)

Wondering About the Possibilities

April fourth. Easter Sunday, 2021. The heating pipes bang repeatedly as the steam rushes to the noisy radiator in the back of the house. About one minute of hammering, then it’s just the pleasant rumble of a gas boiler below and the hissing of steam up here. I’m layered up though it’s already almost sixty where I am in the front living room. A blanket over my legs, a down vest and my trusty winter watch cap and I’m quite cozy.

My wife and I are settling into our new home here while we shuttle back and forth the quarter-mile from our old home, the Temple. The preponderance of nights are now spent here which means that the geography of my morning writing has altered as well.

When we first looked at this small arts-and-crafts bungalow nearly six years ago, we were both struck by how unique and well laid out it was. A small house with wonderful windows and a feeling of space. A large fieldstone fireplace greets you as you come in off the front porch with its picturesque angular columns. This front room is the heart of the house—a spacious room that runs the width of the building. Large square windows take up most of the wall space on either side of the central front door, two windows look out to the west and French doors between bookcases open the eastern wall to a modest porch, lawn and garden.

It all smelled like smoke when we came with the real estate agent. As an enthusiastic camper, that was fine with me, but was almost a deal-breaker for my wife. But what I remember most from that first visit is sitting on a couch in this very spot where I am now writing (to the right as you face the fireplace) and having a clear waking dream of sitting here with my laptop writing and looking out the very window I’m looking out right now. In that dream, I was writing poetry every afternoon with the sun pouring gently through the western windows.

The sun is not quite up yet, and this is not really a poem, but it’s all close enough to entice me wonder again about the causality of things and who is doing what to whom. I mean, is this moment of writing a manifestation of my dream or am I a realization of the dream of the house itself? Are the energies of this building and of this spot of the earth expressing themselves through me? (I can certainly vouch for the fact that though ideas come into my awareness and I tap them into the laptop, I have no clue where these ideas come from nor why one arises and not another—this earth spot and this building are as likely a source as any.)

Does the gardener coax the reluctant seeds to life or do the seeds somehow entice the gardeners to be their hands and feet? Enlisting willing humans is a wonderfully ingenious strategy to spread one’s seeds to wide and gentle geographies that may likely be conducive to the flourishing of the next generation. I imagine the committee that came up with this strategy: ‘No more relying on the birds and the bees to spread our seed, we’ll persuade these two-legged singing creatures to carefully collect us, put us in packets with our seductive blossoms on the front to attract other gardeners, sending us around the country and even sometimes starting us indoors to give us a head start on the season.’ I imagine the delight of the planning committee as they came upon this idea and then realized the best part of the scheme was that the two-legged creatures would most likely think that they themselves had decided to do this. A brilliant reproduction strategy. Inert seeds able to take full advantage of humans—their hands and feet and their latest technology—to enhance the chances of survival of the next generation.

So is buying and eventually moving into this house and sitting here on the couch looking out the window as the radiator rattles and writing—is this me manifesting my dream? Or is my presence tapping out these words while occasionally glancing out the eastern French doors to a brave pot of petunias sitting on the railing of the porch, is my presence part of the dream of the house? Perhaps the fieldstone fireplace is an antenna receiving the angelic voices of the universe and making them available for me to express as I catch fragments of their celestial words and tunes.

Of course, I don’t really believe any of this. But on this day where some significant percentage of the world is celebrating that someone who was three days dead, twenty-one hundred years ago, rose up and walked again…I do wonder about the possibilities.

(Excerpted from forthcoming book Wandering Close to Home: A Year of Zen Reflections, Consolations, and Reveries. September 1, 2024.)

Nothing Inspiring

Foggy brain morning. How to make my home here?

Nothing inspiring or unusual. Same old, same old. The cold weather has me discouraged again. Nothing here but a slight headache and the hum of the refrigerator and the insistent birdcall that comes through the windows.

It’s Saturday of Easter weekend. In the story, He’s still in the darkness of the tomb. Taken down lifeless from the brutal cross and laid out. The Christians are mourning, and the authorities are relieved. What a story to guide a civilization! A story of a peace that passes understanding followed by a senseless death at the hands of the authorities (I thirst.) And then, they say, and they’re already getting ready to celebrate, there is the rising up from the dead. On the third day. Really? Did any of this actually happen then? Or is this still, like all stories, about something that is happening now? (I can’t breathe.)

I read a lovely Ryokan poem in a Dharma talk the other night and a student responded by sharing a matching parable from the Bible about a man who discovered a pearl of great price buried in a field and went and sold everything he had to buy that field. No, no…he joyfully sold everything he had to buy that field.

Where is this field and what is the pearl that could cause such joyful generosity? (For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son…) The pearl of incomparable value is the essence of this life of ten thousand joys and sorrows. Where is it now? How could it be here even in this morning’s dull discouragement?

Hakuin Zenji says: ‘Why do people ignore the near and seek truth afar? Like someone in the midst of water crying out in thirst.’ And Jesus chimes in: ‘The Kingdom of God is within.’ (But it will cost you everything you own and you will joyfully pay.)

Wasn’t yesterday’s reflection something about hanging around long enough to appreciate what is already here? Might that apply to even this?

This quiet morning. The cold sun of early spring illuminates the eastern side of the leafless tree across the street. I slouch easily on the couch in mild discomfort. The street outside is empty. Everything waits here.

Instructions for Wanderers

The point is to try to hang around long enough
in any one particular place to sense what is actually happening.

(Unless we go beyond our opinion,
we cannot receive what is already here.

Without intention, our determined illusion of isolation
separates us from our true kinship with all things.)

Three hanging around skills to test out:
• slow down,
• have no useful purpose,
• be surprised with what you find.

But don’t worry—even without summoning some clear intention and before every employing clever tricks, you have never, not even for one second, been separated from the fulsome love of the universe that holds, sustains, and delights in you.

(Excerpted from forthcoming book Wandering Close to Home: A Year of Zen Reflections, Consolations, and Reveries. September 1, 2024.)