Disclaimer

Several friends have pointed out that sometimes I say ‘always’ or ‘everyone’ does this or that, or feels this or that, or that this or that will happen to ‘us all.’ They caution me against over-reach. Who am I to know about every one? Isn’t every life experience unique and aren’t I closing out possibility and speaking out of turn when I use these words? In considering their objections, I realize that I use these universal locutions to be inclusive. My intention is to write about life itself rather than my life in particular.

My main vantage point on life itself is my own experience, which in some mysterious way is both utterly connected to all the rest of you human beings and is also completely unique. I have come to trust that what arises in me is not just particular to me, but is me experiencing what human life really is in these particular circumstances. I trust my associative mind and notice what memories and thoughts and even physical sensations arise as I follow the thread of what is arising.

I also gather information from friends, families, students and coaching clients. I am fascinated by how each person I encounter has found a way to make it all work for them. Each person, as Jon Kabat-Zinn says, is a genius. I trust that everyone I encounter embodies both the particular wisdom of their own life as well as the full wisdom of being alive. One teacher referred to this as ‘the wondrous functioning.’ We all know perfectly well how to be ourselves and how to be in the particular situation we are in. The moment may be easy or it may be difficult, but it is always exactly what it is. (So there it is, ‘always’, appearing again.)

The Buddha taught that there are four marks of existence. (And even this is suspect – his teachings were not written down until hundreds of years after his death, so whose teachings are they really? Some say he taught only three marks of existence and some translate and understand these teachings in different ways than I do. So maybe they are simply my four, not the Buddha’s four.) The teaching, whomever it belongs to, is that change, discomfort, the lack of a fixed self, and awakening are common to all human beings. (Ruth King, in her book RACE MATTERS, wonderfully translates/interprets the first three as: nothing is permanent, perfect, or personal.)

But what I am trying to get at is that I do want to talk about and draw you, my reader, into the essence of life. I do want to get to the core of it all so that we can more deeply appreciate and work with this amazing gift we have each been given. In the service of this, I sometimes make blanket statements that may or may not be true. In fact, even the non-blanket statements I make may or may not be true.

This is where you, the reader, must continue to do your part. In spite of my best attempts at directness and honesty, I remain incorrigibly partial and self-deluded. I continue to miss the mark, both in my life and in my writing. I am engaged in the ongoing process of coming to terms with and even appreciating my blindness and forgetfulness as part of the whole dance of life.

I sincerely hope that sometimes I write or point to some truth that touches your own deep knowing as you read. This is what I aim for, to spark the resonance of your own wisdom. I am also sure that sometimes what I present with conviction and sincerity will not be true, meaningful or useful for you. Both are fine conditions, though I must admit my preference for the former.

So may ‘we all’ filter the teachings we encounter through the lens of our own experience. What confuses or disturbs us is not necessarily false, but our ultimate guide has to be our own deep heart’s wisdom. We ‘all’ already have the wisdom we are looking for.

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

Guilt and Innocence

The light comes slowly into the dark. I lie in bed befuddled by another night of dreaming and wonder at the slow pace of its seeping into the room. A swirl of images and oppressive feelings surges within me.

One day, several years ago when I couldn’t find my words, I was told to go immediately to the hospital. They took me in without waiting and then had me wait with nothing to do while they tested my brain and heart. Eventually, everything was ascertained to be in fine fettle, but not until I spent the night in the surge unit—an all-purpose room with many beds and thin curtains separating the ailing inhabitants—and made a midnight run to the MRI machine where the attendant banged hammers against the machine my head was in while he drew detailed images of my brain.

This morning, the words are still here, though I haven’t tried to speak out loud yet. The odd thing about my ten minutes of aphasia then was that I still had all the words inside me, it’s just when I tried to speak them, they came out jumbled. I was aware of their disarrangement and slowly said to the person I was talking to: ‘I’m not making any sense, am I?’ He agreed, we called Melissa who was out doing errands (remember the old days?), she called the doctor and the rest proceeded as it did.

All of this is here now, somehow included in my night of dreams where I was waking up to not having lived up to my responsibilities. I dream this over and over. Usually, I’m at college and it’s toward the end of the semester, the paper is due, the exam is coming up and I haven’t been going to class at all or doing any of the work and I’m about to be found out. Sometimes I realize that I never got a course catalog at the beginning of the semester (perhaps the best part of college – the looking through the course catalog before the semester starts and dreaming of all the wonderful courses I might take) and have been enrolled in courses of which I am not even aware.

Last night I was living in a commune of sorts, where we were all supposed to do our share and I had been so busy that when I showed up in the kitchen, vowing to myself to start pitching in, that the others stopped what they were doing and gave me a lecture about how in group settings it’s always just a few who do most of the work. I sheepishly agreed and did my best not to make excuses.

I suppose someday I must learn to confess my guilt and protest my innocence more vehemently. It’s true, I haven’t held up my end of the bargain. I haven’t been the person I aspire to be. Again and again I have fallen short—disappointing myself and others. And it’s also true that no mistakes have been made. I have always done my best and even when that has not been very much, it has still been the best I could have done in that circumstance.

The universe I give back to the universe. I am tired of my self-proclaimed job as ruler and cede my misguided attempts at control. I vow once again to show up, to pay attention, to do what I can where I am, and to leave the outcome up to the source of life that sustains and receives us all.

Sitting With Good Friends

Yesterday was a gorgeous day for sitting in the Temple garden with good friends. The Buddha said the good friends along the way are the essence of the journey. So, as good friends, a small part of our Boundless Way Zen community sat together in meditation in a still-socially distanced circle to express our love and wonder at being alive. We enjoyed the sounds of the waterfall and the wind in the trees mingled with the traffic and sirens and even the racket of a lawn being mowed on the other side of the fence. All together altogether.

The maples that sheltered us with their nascent leaves participated by dropping the blessing of their small green flowers and a squirrel stopped his urgent busyness to sit momentarily still as well. All of us—two-legged seated creatures, green rooted creatures—squirrels, bunnies, worms, and microbes—all living and breathing together. All of us expressing the fullness of life in being and doing exactly who we are.

It was a delight to be in each other’s company, but also weird. I’m not used to the proximity of other humans yet. We kept our distance though we wore masks and the majority of us, I think, have already been vaccinated. An abundance of caution mixed with the urge to be close. We smiled and talked—wandered in the garden—marveled at the daffodils and tulips, the three resident koi and many helped carry the small mountain of branches from a year’s worth of storms from the far back to up near the front parking lot for the wood chipper that will come at some unspecified time.

By the end of two sessions of sitting, walking and a little (masked) chanting, I was exhausted and happy to return to the unsocial bubble of my home with just my partner. We watched some TV, I went back into the now-quiet garden and enjoyed the reverberations of an afternoon with good friends on the way.

Too Much

Saturday morning—leading a Zen koan workshop in Belgium this morning, then gathering with our community for Zen meditation in the afternoon. Meanwhile (which is quickly becoming my favorite word) my two hopefully planted sweet pea seedlings have survived our recent slightly sub-freezing temperatures and arctic winds in the garden and their compatriots of all green shades and shapes are growing lush under the constructed circadian rhythms of the grow-lights in the predictable warmth of the empty meditation hall.

I love to live at the edge. Edges are said to be the most diverse and interesting parts of any ecosystem. The region in between the forest and the meadow—between the land and the sea—between too many and just enough seedlings. Fascinating things happen at the edges. Studying these in-between regions we can begin to realize that clear edges are much more a linguistic construction than a property of the world.

Language is about the boundary between this and that. Life is about everything all together. Many of us have been encouraged to have clear boundaries. Yes means yes and no means no. I am here and you are there. But it turns out that language functions better when we remember it is simply a temporary expedient, not the thing itself. I am certainly not you, but, dear reader, as you read this, part of me is becoming part of you. Your eyes scan these black squiggles on your screen and form words and sentences and images in your mind. Whatever happens in your mind is clearly you, isn’t it? But some vague idea that comes into my mind from whatever its source and finds its way into this morning’s wandering exploration of life has now found its way into the dark mass of electrical processing we call ‘your’ brain.

Not only that, but I think I have once again been overly enthusiastic in the number of seedlings I have begun. Zinnias tend to be my downfall. The first flower seeds planted in my early spring indoor growing season are usually the tiny ones that take a week or two to germinate. They then emerge as the frailest green threads holding aloft little flakes of green leaves. They grow quite slowly, and only after six or seven weeks gain enough heft to be transplanted.

Zinnias, on the other hand, are large (comparatively) flakes of seed that sprout in a few days as vigorous actors that push the growing medium willy-nilly aside to proclaim their lofty aspirations. This year’s crop of Benary Giants and Cupid Mix has not disappointed. In less than three weeks they have filled in the growing trays and now need to be transplanted into larger pots. So today or early tomorrow morning, I’ll transplant them. But then will I have room under the grow lights? And now it will be a race between the weather and their growth. Too long under the grow lights, even with adequate sized pots and they will get too leggy or tall to transplant successfully into the garden. The guaranteed last frost date around here is the end of May, but it’s usually safe by May 20, but not always…

So, I have once again successfully allowed my enthusiasm to take me to the edge of what is possible. Will the timing work out? Have I planted too many to be able to keep them all going while the weather is still unsettled? Meanwhile, who will be able to care for my emerald menagerie while I take a six-day trip to see my mother for the first time in 18 months and help her move from her independent living apartment to the support of the medical wing of her retirement community where she can receive more support for the daily necessities of her life and for her care of my step-father who often needs attention?

We’re always in the middle of so much—always in transition with ourselves, with those we love and with whatever wild projects and plans we undertake. It’s really all too much, but also kind of exciting.

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

Reading Well

I pretty much have to wear my glasses now when I want to read. I can still make the print big enough on my kindle and computer to escape my fate, but the print in the paperback and hardcover books I love is slipping away from me. If I squint and concentrate I can still do it, but it’s not an easeful activity and I’m starting to resign myself to picking up my glasses more often.

I’ve always had an ambivalent relationship with reading. In fourth and fifth grade, I was one of those boys who dreaded when it was my turn to read out loud to my peers. It seemed like a test with no upside—if you read well that was expected and they just went on to the next person, but if you mixed up your words or couldn’t sound one out, everyone knew how clumsy and stupid you really were.

But I loved the adventure stories of Beau Geste, Ivanhoe and others that my father read to me and my brother. We also delighted in going to the library with my mother and returning with as many books as we were allowed. I was thrilled by getting to choose my own books from amongst the many wondrous topics and illustrations. I loved the heft and feel of my own private stack of books which I carefully kept on my lap on the car ride home—obediently not reading until we got home because reading in the car is bad for your eyes.

But reading myself was never as much fun when the pictures diminished and I had to do it alone. That was until I discovered the ‘We Were There’ series, a collection of first person re-imaginations of significant events in American history. I think it was ‘We Were There at the Alamo’ that first hooked me.

From my father, and from some natural and culturally encouraged tendency toward romance and righteous questing, I loved adventure stories. The hero is always set to right some obvious wrong against impossible odds. Through his many trials, he never waivers. His courage and strength are steadfast and he ultimately prevails and is recognized as the true hero he has always been.

At eight years old, I was mesmerized by the lush, violent and romantic movie ‘The Alamo’ which my Dad too me and my brother to see. John Wayne directed it and played my name sake, Davy Crockett. The women and children are spared, but the men carry out their duty of honor and die for freedom and love. At sixty-eight, I’m now rather critical of this one-sided vision of imperialism and misguided violence masquerading as manhood, but to and as and eight year old, with my father’s support, this seemed like a good and true vision of how to be a man.

So I remember taking out ‘We Were There at the Alamo’ from the school library on Friday, coming home from school and sitting in one chair for two or three hours and reading the whole thing. I was swept away. When I tearfully looked up at the heroic and tragic conclusion, I didn’t know where I was. It was a wonderful feeling, but it was balanced by feeling so physically awful and even nauseous from having sat in the same position concentrating on the small type for so long. From then on, I tried not to read so long at one time, but I was hooked on the possibilities.

I always read numerous books at a time now. One that is especially delighting me these days is Wallace Stegner’s classic BEYOND THE HUNDREDTH MERIDIAN: JOHN WESLEY POWELL AND THE SECOND OPENING OF THE WEST. My paperback copy has small print so I always put on my glasses when I dive it to marvel at the vastness of the west and the eternal battle of romance and realism, between principled courage and self-promotion—all filtered through Stegner’s luminous prose, prodigious knowledge and inspiring insight into human nature.

Even in the full flood of springtime, it’s worth putting on my classes and sitting in a chair for—at least for a little while.