Dreaming of Reality

I was talking with a friend the other day about Arny Mindell’s trinitarian model of reality. He says there are three levels of reality that are operating all the time. I’ve heard these levels referred to with different names, but the ones that stick with me are consensual reality, the dream world, and the source world.

The first level is consensual reality. This refers to all the stuff we can see, touch, measure, and agree on. The green couch, your to-do list, bank account, and what you ate for breakfast are all on this list. Consensual reality is the world of rational thought, analysis, and problem-solving.

The second level is the dream world. This includes everything present that is amorphous, intuitive, and what cannot be precisely pinned down. Your hopes and dreams, the odd thought that flits through your head, the glance that passes between you and a friend, all this is included. The dream world is not rational and cannot be measured or precisely pinned down.

The source world is the third level. This is the unspeakable source of all that happens. We might also call this the Tao, the cosmic origin, or the Prime Mover. It is the origin of everything—before language and thought. We can point toward and perhaps even follow the movement of the source world, but we can never fully describe, name, or comprehend this realm.

Mindell’s teaching is that everything that happens is happening at all these levels, but it can be useful, in working with persistent or important problems, to consider which levels are being ignored. Usually, we get stuck in consensual reality. Anyone who has tried to reason through a recurring problem with a partner or a parent can verify how little success this approach yields. A discussion of the persistence of crumbs on the counter that focuses on the crumbs themselves is unlikely to lead anywhere productive.

Our western-rational-analytic bias often undervalues the dream-like quality of our lives. From consensual reality, I am here and you are there, but in the dream world, things are much more fluid and provisional. You are a part of me and I am a part of you. The issue we are dealing with is not just the content, but also includes the history of our relationship and many people and events that are not physically present.

The Buddha also taught that our lives have a dream-like quality. In the Diamond Sutra, he encourages us to ‘view this fleeting world’ as ‘a phantom and a dream.’ While life is certainly not a dream (if you jump off the top of a tall building, you will certainly end up in a crumpled heap on the ground), this teaching points to the co-existing truth of the evanescence of life.

We can talk about yesterday afternoon when it was mild and the sun was shining—or reminisce about a year ago, before the pandemic—or tell stories of things that happened decades ago. But where are all these events and conditions now? And have you ever spent a single moment in the future? All our planning and worrying never leads anywhere but to this ever-changing moment.

So perhaps today, while you honor the many demands and plans of your life, you might try going a little dreamy. Let your gaze soften and your focus go fuzzy. What if the tree branch moving in the morning wind is dancing or waving to you–signaling something or singing a song? What if you are the tree? Or you are the wind? What if you jumped up so high that you could see the whole world and could spend the day gazing down on the beautiful and intricate patterns of everyday life? What if the whole world is your dream and you are the dream of the whole world?

I think of the lovely small song attributed to the Ojibwe Indigenous American tribe:
Why do I go about pitying myself, when all the time I am being carried on great winds across the sky?

Sleepless in Worcester

Awake at three a.m. with a mind not interested in rest, I try not to wish my life away. Appreciating life is easy on a sunny afternoon that is unseasonably warm and spring’s first flowers are poking out of the frozen ground, but it’s a little more challenging in these places where we clearly wish it were otherwise. This morning’s too early awakeness is not terrible, just inconvenient and slightly irritating.

I have a strict rule with myself that I don’t get up at these times. Anything before 4:30 is still night. I reason that even lying awake in bed has some restorative qualities so I don’t get up and start writing or reading or meditating. I stay where I am and try to be patient and gently interested. Is a particular place my thoughts are going? What is it like to lie in bed and want to go to sleep? What is there in this familiar place that I have never noticed before?

Sometimes I think of an old woman I once saw in a documentary film about the lives of people who were Japanese National Living Treasures. She was a weaver and must have been in her eighties or nineties. Her health was poor and her vision was deteriorating. She said she often woke very early and lay awake in the dark before someone would come to help her get up. She claimed she didn’t mind this at all. With a twinkle in her eye, she said that she listened to the birds and lay there excited with the knowledge that soon she would be able to get out of bed and sit at her beloved loom again.

She came to me again last night. She is always kind and gentle. Comparing myself to her, I see how young and impatient I really am. Apparently, I am a slow learner. I write and I teach and I practice Zen and walk attentively in the garden because I don’t yet get it. I mean, I can say the right things and point in directions that people find sometimes useful, but I, myself, am still a work-in-progress.

The great abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning painted huge canvases and would spend weeks, months, and even years on the same painting. Over this time, there was a lot of painting, but there was much more just looking. Even after it was nearing completion, he would spend hours and hours smoking cigarettes and just staring at what was in front of him. I suppose he was trying to figure out what he was doing and what, if anything, to do next. I still appreciate his tenacious patience and wonder if I should take up smoking. Probably not.

This morning, I longed to release back into sleep but some part of my brain clung obstinately to consciousness. Looking around for things to think about, I started thinking about this book I am working on and came up with a provisional title. The book will be a second collection and arrangement of these daily writings. For now, I’m calling it: How to Live: Consolations, Reveries and Reflections. But since I also have a rule not to turn on the light and didn’t have a pen handy anyway, I repeated it to myself over and over in hopes of not forgetting.

I liked it better in the dark early morning, but even in the light I still think it captures some of my intention and describes some of what the book will be. I’m glad I remembered it and wonder if I should consider changing some of my rules so I don’t keep myself awake trying to remember all my good ideas.

Honors and Ambivalence

When I earned my black belt in judo, the paper in Nagasaki, Japan, where I was living for a year as a Rotary Club exchange student, sent a reporter to my home for an interview. My host mother and father and I met with the reporter in the living room of our house—the only room that contained western furniture. I remember feeling proud and uncomfortable.

Earning a black belt in judo in Japan was not such a big deal. Most young people of high school age were able to do it in several years of intensive practice. It was the equivalent of being on the varsity sports team in your local high school, a mark of dedication and modicum of talent, but not much more.

We usually think of judo as the standing throws that are so quick and flashy. Two people stand facing each other grabbing onto each other’s jacket and suddenly one goes flying and lands with a thud on the mat. These throws are called nage-waza, throwing techniques. If the throw is clean and well-executed, the thrower wins the match, but if it is less than conclusive, as it usually is, the match continues on the ground, which is where ne-waza or grappling techniques come into play. It’s not as dramatic or elegant as nage-waze but ne-waza wins a lot of matches. And having been a minor star on my American high school wrestling team. I was very good at ne-waza.

My black belt competition was a city-wide event with students from all over the region coming to compete with each other and earn points toward earning a black-belt. As I remember, we had to demonstrate a certain number of required throws and then we competed in five matches to demonstrate our skill. I won all my matches, even a few with throws, but it was the final one that drew attention to me.

My opponent was skilled and tough though considerably smaller than me. I couldn’t throw him but eventually got him down to the mat where we grappled. Now part of ne-waza is joint immobilization techniques and chokeholds. When your opponent locks you in such a hold, you ‘tap out’ and the match ends with the other person winning. After a lot of back and forth, I managed to trap my smaller opponent in a strong choke-hold. I held on tight and waited. He refused to tap and finally, the referee called the match, but my opponent did not get up. He had passed out rather than surrender. Worse than that, he began convulsing. He was taken to a hospital and recovered fully, but at the time I was quite shaken though my coach patted me on the back and I said I had done well.

I earned my black belt, but the article written about me in the paper was mostly because I was an American. Out of the other twenty or thirty other black belts awarded that day, I was the only one who got his own newspaper article. I sat uncomfortably in the rarely used western chairs, in my judo uniform with my blond hair coming down over my forehead.  No one mentioned the convulsions or the chokehold.  My host mother was clearly very proud of me and, as usual, I couldn’t tell what my host father made of the whole thing.

About a week later, the coach of my judo team told me that the coaches of the other high school judo teams had gotten together and decided that since I wasn’t a fully matriculated high school student, I could not represent my high school in the upcoming matches. He said they were just afraid because I was so good. Whatever their reasoning, I was happy to not have to choke anyone else and never practiced judo again.

Definitely Coming

Patches of snow still cover the shady areas and a hill of frozen snow, plowed in February from the parking lot, blocks the front entrance to the Temple garden. But a familiar, small yellow flower whose name I can never remember is poking up near the pond and the first burgundy hellebore blossoms behind the gazebo—joining the dozen or so white snowdrops who are nodding in contentment despite their proximity to the still frozen ground.

Spring is definitely coming.

Nothing can hold it back now – not the pandemic, not systemic injustice, not the Republicans, not the Democrats, not the additional snow and ice that will surely come. The overall trajectory is clear and my inner self begins to feel safe enough to take off her clenched coat of protection and allow the sun’s nourishment and warmth to penetrate deep into my over-wintered heart.

Working On a Poor Tax Attitude

I spent an unpleasant morning yesterday working on my 2020 taxes. I make a point of trying to adjust my attitude to appreciate whatever it is I choose to do, but the collision of my relatively casual bookkeeping and my inner urge to make sure everything is right (especially when the IRS is watching) proved to be too much. So I spent the morning on my laptop feeling resentful, judgmental, and anxious.

As I reflect on this, I remember Byron Katie’s four questions that I first encountered in her book LOVING WHAT IS. Katie emphasizes the fact that our suffering is almost always due to our thinking. Many things happen in the world, but it is only when we expect reality to be different from what it is that we suffer. Posing these four questions and moving to the turn-around is her way to shift our thinking and perhaps even end our ongoing quarrel with reality.

Here is what I remember of Byron Katie’s process:
Write down the judgment or complaint.
1) Is it true?
2) Is it really true?
3) How do you feel when you think that thought?
4) Who would you be if you could never think that thought again?
TURN IT AROUND and compare.

(Stated this way, it’s clearly a 6 or 7 step process, but 4 is close to 6 or 7 and perhaps easier to remember. I wonder if the IRS would mind if I used this kind of rounding on my taxes?)

So, let me work the process with my lingering resentment from yesterday.

The complaint: ‘I’m resentful that I had to spend the morning keeping track of things I don’t really care about.’

Is this true? Yes, clearly!

Is this really true? No. On a deeper level, I really do care about being a good steward of what I have been given. These patterns of numbers appearing on my computer screen are a large part of what allows me to live in a warm house and pick random things off the shelf in the grocery store to take home to eat—not to mention buy books to delight me, seeds to grow in my garden and expensive craft beer to delight my palate and support the local economy. I also chose to spend the morning doing this task which means I had both the luxury of an open morning and that I still have the capacity to think and calculate well enough to attempt this cultural ritual one more time. It won’t always be so.

When I say ‘I had to spend the morning keeping track of things I don’t really care about?’, how do I feel? I feel resentful and agitated—irritated and slightly sorry for myself. I scowl and feel put upon.

If I could never have this thought again, who would I be? I would live a fine life. I might sometimes choose to work on my taxes, but I could be interested in finding the balance between being accurate and being exact. I could do as much as I was able to do that day and leave the rest for another day.

TURN IT AROUND   I am fortunate to have chosen to spend the morning keeping track of things I truly care about.

Is this as true or perhaps even more true than my original statement? It’s at least as true and probably more true! I am glad I still have enough sources of income that my taxes are still a little complicated. I am blessed to have so much money coming in that I don’t have to worry about it all the time, that I can have the luxury of just thinking about it seriously on occasion. I am blessed with such a wealth of choices. People give me money that allows me to do what I love. I have such freedoms and luxuries. Preparing an accurate summary of my financial year gives me a chance to look at the big picture and to be amazed at how much I have to be grateful for.

And…my preliminary calculations indicate that I will also have the opportunity to give some of the money which has been given to me, to the United States government. I am happy that just this week that same government is passing legislation to send money to individuals, small businesses, schools, and local governments to support a full and widespread recovery from the pandemic. I get to be part of the generosity and support extended to so many.

This is good. This is what is. I am lucky to be alive.

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