Finally Cold

The cold is coming. At last.

Yesterday we had the first real frost of the year—almost two months after our average frost date. Tonight, the temperatures will drop below twenty Fahrenheit.  A sudden change from the mild Autumn we’ve be having that has so far been the warmest on record for New England. While I appreciate temperate weather and the possibilities it brings for playing in the garden, walking in the woods and just sitting outdoors on the porch, this warmth is too much. These are scary times.

It feels counter intuitive to say that we need the cold. The winters here in Worcester can be quite harsh. You have to be careful when the temperature is low and the wind is strong. Frostbite can come quickly, even in the city. But we’re all, the humans and the plants and the houses, reasonably well adapted to these particular conditions.

The trees drop their leaves and stand in graceful silhouette. The ground freezes down a foot or two and holds everything in an icy embrace of darkness. Even the koi in the Temple pond seem content to remain nearly motionless in their fish cave below the ice.  And we humans can perhaps enjoy our cozy houses and the excuse to watch a little more TV or read another book that’s been sitting on our bookshelf for too long.

In August, I had the great good fortune of flying over Greenland on a crystal clear day. Melissa and I were flying home after leading a ten-day meditation retreat in Denmark and I happened to open my window at just the right time. I had never before seen the vast beauty of the snow fields and the flowing glaciers so clearly. Having read so much about the concern of the melting ice mass, I was conscious of their fragility even as their grandeur and scale were breathtaking.

This astonishing and ever-changing planet.

This dire crisis.

This precious life.

Good News!

Good news at the polls yesterday. Democrats gained ground in New Jersey, Virginia and many other places. I was especially heartened by the results of the governor’s race in Virginia where Ralph Northam defeated his Republican opponent, Ed Gillespie by a significant margin. For the most part of his career, Gillespie has apparently been fairly moderate and was reluctant to support Trump and his excesses. But during the last months of the governor’s race, Gillespie began the immigrant bashing and touting a Confederate nostalgia that are Trump’s signature call to white supremacists and other hate mongers. AND HE LOST!

Republicans in Congress, whom I continue to try to assume are decent and well-meaning human beings, are faced with an impossible situation. Anyone who has the courage to stand up to Trump’s lies or to name his wild narcissism (thank you Jeff Flake) are immediately attacked by the furies of the white nationalist hate movement. Trump shows loyalty only to himself. Even though he supported Gillespie during the election, the moment Gillespie lost, Trump abandoned and attacked him. No honor among thieves.

Writing this, I’m aware of how satisfying it is to be right and to have my version of reality supported in the stories I read and the stories I tell. I am suspicious of myself, and yet I am still heartened by the turn of events at the polls this past Tuesday. For me, these results signal an awakening of forces of moderation and inclusiveness over Trumps dark cabal of hate and fear.

One more heartening story from the NYTimes Editorial this morning:

In January, a local New Jersey Republican politician, John Carman, mocked the anti-Trump Women’s March by asking on Facebook whether the protest would be “over in time for them to cook dinner.” That so upset Ashley Bennett, a 32-year-old health care worker, that she challenged Mr. Carman for his seat on the Atlantic County Board of Chosen Freeholders. “Elected officials shouldn’t be on social media mocking and belittling people who are expressing their concerns about their community and the nation,” she said during her campaign. If Mr. Carman does it again, it will be as a private citizen. Ms. Bennett defeated him on Tuesday. 

May we all continue to do whatever we can to stand up for all human dignities as we learn to honor each piece of this global web of interdependent life.

The Morning After

When I wrote yesterday morning, I didn’t make the connection that it was the anniversary of Trump’s election. This morning, one year ago was when I woke up to the news that Clinton had lost. I have rarely been as shocked and truly scared for my life and freedoms as I was that morning. I remember getting back into bed and holding my wife as I cried.

Fortunately, my worst fears have not come true yet. Trump’s incompetence has been one of the silver linings in the dark cloud of his administration. His inability to focus on any one strategic issue outside for himself has meant that while he has been wildly successful at creating chaos, his legislative victories have been nearly non-existent.

But Trump’s appointments of the rich, elite and under-qualified to cabinet level posts has been a huge blow to the working of our government – the EPA, HUD, Education Department are all headed by individuals with little experience and with philosophic enmity to the mission of their agencies. Some commentators have suggested that Trump’s only agenda is to tear down what Obama put in place with has no coherent idea what to replace them with. Animosity toward Obama’s legacy seems to be his guiding principle.

David Brooks, Republican commentator from the New York Times, suggested that Trump is playing the role of Abby Hoffman, who successfully disrupted business as usual in the 60’s with his antics. Hoffman, Brooks posits, had the easy job of disruptor and took no interest or responsibility for the outcomes. Trump’s Twitter ramblings and personal attacks are both embarrassing behavior for any grown-up and quite effective disruptors.

One principle I often share in my work with leaders of organizations is that a system is capable of fundamental change only when it is far from equilibrium. This is the good news and the bad news. Here in America, we are now certainly far from equilibrium and there is no guarantee which direction the change will take.

Reconsidering Trump

A friend asked me why I haven’t been posting any writing recently. Though I have lots of reasons, I suspect that some of the main issues are my feelings of anger, discouragement and helplessness about the state of our country.

Last November at this time I was regularly writing about my outrage and confusion at Trump’s election. A year later I still can’t quite believe that our country is led by a man who is leads by deceit, intimidation and fear mongering. Of course, these strategies have been employed by politicians and others seeking power, money and sex for millenia. But our current President and his administration have taken them to new levels that threaten to undermine our capacity to hold meaningful conversations about what is actually happening around us.

Any news or report that Trump doesn’t like is labeled ‘fake news.’ Uncomfortable questions at news briefings are simply ignored or mocked. But, even worse for me is the acquiescence of the Republican Congress that appears to be more interested in scoring political points than in protecting us from the unpredictable and mendacious behavior of the President.

In reading accounts of the rise of McCarthy in the fifties, I never understood how one person could get away with a career of lies and malicious innuendos—why no one stood up to stop him. But now I see how individuals like McCarthy and Trump can utilize the dark currents of human greed, anger and ignorance to accumulate personal power and wealth.

Trump IS our President and he rides atop the dark currents of racism, sexism and economic oppression that have been as much a part of our American history as our democracy, equality under the law and respect for the individual.

How do we use this time in history to recognize and begin to heal the ancient wounds of our country? How do we use our privilege to stand for something more than comfort and division? How do we keep our hearts open AND act powerfully together to support the mutuality of our fragile web of life on this blue-green planet?

What shall we do?

Poem for My Daughter Turning Thirty-One

At your invitation, we visit
the Rothko paintings and
shoulder-by-shoulder stand
18 inches (as instructed) from
the shimmering color canvases
to consider how we might enter in.
Appreciation shifts perception
and together we begin to see
what we had not seen before.
Later, in bright plastic chairs
on the museum lawn, you
remember how I told you
that the word is not the thing itself
and how you looked at the door knob
of the closet in your five-year-old
room and pondered how
this might be true.

A Small Joy

The three nasturtium seeds
I planted in early May have
morphed into a small riot
of round leaves rising from
the gray pot. Punctuated now
with two trumpeting flowers
of the purest orange. One
stem escapes downward,
bearing its leaves as an
array of delicate green shields,
ever smaller till the end.

After Retreat

Loading dark clothes
into the wash, I check
for rogue tissues lurking
in unremembered places.

Finding one soft suspect
in the pocket of my meditation
jacket, I feel a small surge
of pride in my mindful activity.

Until later, when unloading
the drier, I find a white filigree
of shredded tissue adorning
the entire heap of tumbled clothes.

Picking off the endless
little bits as I fold the load,
I smile in amazement
at the cleverness of tissues

and my apparently unlimited
capacity for self deception.

Complaining

Thinking this morning about complaining – how easy it is to fall into this attitude – regardless of one’s situation. This morning I’m feeling grumpy about the number of emails sitting in my inbox which are asking me to find time for this and that. I want to say yes to all of them, to please others and to get stuff done. But I have grown quite irritated by my tendency to schedule so many meetings that I am exhausted and resentful by the end of the day. I feel overwhelmed and feel a strong urge just to avoid my email altogether. (I have been practicing this strategy for the last day and a half and it doesn’t seem to have improved the situation so I may have to come up with a different tactic soon.)

As I write, I’m sitting out on the porch of the Temple in the humid summer morning. Looking down through the balustrades, I see the new waterfall and pond we have installed. Some koi swim lazily around the edge. The soft hushing sound of the waterfall fills the space between the louder rushing of the cars while the birds add their melodic callings.

It’s been eight and a half years that I’ve lived here at Boundless Way Zen Temple – eight and half years since we created this place. At first it was just a name. A friend complained: ‘How can you call it a Temple? It’s just a big house.’ I suppose that was true until we had our first meditation period here – the morning after we moved in. I woke before anyone else to find a small tree had fallen against the house overnight—and so it began.

How many mornings have I sat out here with my laptop – delving into the mysteries of this arising moment? How many words have I typed? How many thoughts have appeared? And I still don’t know where they come from, or why some seem to have some energy and aliveness that others don’t. Most of what I write is never seen – wanderings in the universe of the self – the universe that is the arising of me and the world together. For me, the writing is a way of paying attention to my experience – the experience that arises as seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling and thinking. I don’t know where it comes from or how it organizes itself. But the contact point itself is the fullness of life.

The fish like the edges of the pond – like the spaces under the rocks where there is shelter. Me too, these edges of the day, before the fullness begins allow some kind of appreciating that vanishes in the fullness of life itself.

But back to complaining – I got distracted by the immediacy of things – forgot I was trying to present complaining – to look into complaining as an arising – to understand the arising of it and perhaps the gift of it – or at least some way through it.

But I got distracted and have already moved on.

Do What You Can To Stop The Health Care Bill

The Republicans have been working behind closed doors for several weeks to create a palatable version of the House Health Care Plan for the country. Now, having just released their plan, they hope to push it through the Senate within the next week. This is a complex bill with far reaching consequences for the quality of life of millions of Americans, so their secrecy and haste must be due to the recognition of the difficulty of taking away benefits once they have been given.

Nobody wants to give back what they have been given, especially not us wealthy people who started life in comfort and have been supported and given hand-outs all our lives. I don’t see how this bill is anything other than a defensive move by the elite to protect our power and wealth.

The heart of this bill seems to be tax cuts for the wealthy that are financed by deep cuts to Medicare and health insurance subsidies for low-income people. These cuts will have real impact on the human beings in our society that are the most vulnerable. This is truly not a Health Care Bill, but an income redistribution plan—from the poor to the rich.

This is wrong. We have an obligation to each other, whatever our life circumstances. The wealth and power of this country come from all the people, not just the ones who run corporations and invest money. We are all in this together and have a moral duty to use our resources to relieve the suffering of those who are in need.

Please do whatever you can to inform yourself about this bill and do what you can to prevent it’s passage in the Senate. I just listened to Elizabeth Warren’s speech on the Senate floor – powerful and upsetting but worth listening to.

Reflection Upon Returning

First day back at work after a four-week trip to teach and travel in Europe. Two weeks in the UK leading a workshop in Cambridge and a silent retreat in the mountains of northern Wales. Then two weeks in Italy, sightseeing in Milan, a silent retreat, then three nights on Lake Como.

This going and coming across the Atlantic is now a familiar pattern in my life. It’s always centered on teaching and practicing the work of waking up with friends.   I feel blessed, embarrassed and disturbed to have fallen into such a glamorous life-style.

Blessed – to ascend again and again into the stratosphere and look down on the endless shapes and patterns of this fragile planet. I always want a window seat. As the shore of France appears beneath us, I remember the shapes and colors from my grade school maps of the world. I delight in the snowy mountains and deep valleys of Switzerland and the clustered burnt sienna rooftops of the small Italian towns surrounded by pastures and fields.

Blessed – to be in places of great and unusual beauty: The harsh and ancient landscape of the mountains of northern Wales. The sandy architecture and traditions of Oxford and the University where learning has been a sacred and wondrous activity for centuries. The Duomo of Milan – gleaming white and magnificent in the afternoon sun. The rain clouds coming and going on Lake Como, revealing and hiding the high mountains that contain this pristine and touristy site.

Blessed – to spend time with old and dear friends on the path: People who have devoted their lives to waking up and to creating opportunities for others to do the same. Teachers and students in the mindfulness movement. Friends who open their homes to us, who take care of us, who make it all possible with their work before, during and after our trips.

Blessed – to be part of a Zen community here in Worcester that has the leadership and the energy to keep going while we are gone. So many people step up and do the little and big things that ensure the Temple, the gardens and, most importantly, the practice are still here when we return.

Embarrassed – to say in casual conversation, as if it’s no big deal: ‘Yes, I’m just back from Europe. We’re off again in August.’ To post pictures on Facebook that so easily look like ‘Look how wonderful my life is.’ – but wanting to share the wonder and beauty of new things so not being able to resist.

Disturbed – to have to leave my garden in the spring when everything is coming once again into being. To be taken out of my comfortable morning routine of tea and writing. To have to change my watch and my body clock again and again. To sleep (or not sleep) in strange beds and eat dinner at a time when most reasonable people (people like me) should be fast asleep.

Of course, I am blessed to be disturbed—to get a chance to step away to step back. In the coming home, I see once again the wonder and specificity of my daily life.

And though I rarely think of myself as rich, I live a life of astonishing privilege and I probably should be constantly embarrassed at the ease of it all.

I’ve had a few days to re-adjust my body clock and to find my way back into the blooming life of my garden. This morning, I have my calendar set with appointments, have my to-do list carefully ordered by urgency, and am ready to once again put on the comforting cloak of my social identity.

But now I have a slightly enhanced sense of how provisional it all is – truly a dream that appears and vanishes in an instant. I vow once again to appreciate the strangeness and beauty of daily life.