No Comes Before Yes

Yesterday I ended my writing with a list of questions from Peter Block’s book The Answer to How is Yes: Acting on What Matters. This is another one of those books that has the power to change your life. Block writes in detail about the possibility of living a life based on a deep alignment with our hearts. We enter into a life of freedom when we commit to that which is most important. This commitment does not come after we have figured out how to do it or know what the outcome will be.

The decision to act on what matters comes out of considering the questions Block lists under the heading YES IS THE RIGHT QUESTION.

What refusal have I been postponing?
What commitment am I willing to make?
What is the price I am willing to pay?
What is my contribution to the problem I am concerned with?
What is the crossroad at which I find myself at this point in my life/work?
What is the question that, if I had the answer, would set me free?

First of all I have to say that I love this as a heading for a list. It is grammatically and reasonably incorrect. ‘Yes’ is not a question. How could it be the ‘right question?’ YES IS THE RIGHT QUESTION, causes both a sense of confusion and a sense of possibility within me. It takes me out of careful reasoning and invites me into another realm of thinking and being.

This heading comes after his previous list of questions: HOW IS THE WRONG QUESTION. Perhaps these two headings and the title of the book are enough to convey his essential encouragement—to live a life of meaning and action. Block points us toward a life that is oriented beyond figuring things out and working hard—a life that springs not from calculation and planning but from deep dreaming and creative engagement. It is not a life of pleasing other people and making sure we have everything under control. Acting on what matters requires much and guarantees little.

As Block discusses the first question ‘What refusal have I been postponing?’ he refers to the great psychologist Carl Jung who ‘stated that all consciousness begins with an act of disobedience.’ I love that he begins his invitation to act on what matters with refusals and disobedience.

My grandson, who is a little over a year and a half old, is now practicing this kind of creative disobedience. His favorite word is ‘No.’ And, unless you happen to be his parent and have to deal with it all the time, it is incredibly cute. He is beginning to realize he has an inner life. He does not want more banana and does want more cheese. Sometimes his seeming pleasure in saying ‘no’ is so great that he says it even when he actually wants more. To their credit, his parents are encouraging him to notice and express himself. Of course, when it’s time to stop rolling the recycling bin around the driveway and come in for dinner, even his granddad will not be swayed by his plaintive ‘no’s’ and he will not get his way.

This little person is learning to chart his own inner world and also learning that he is not ruler of the universe. I suppose this is our life-long lesson as adults. It’s easy to forget either side of this equation. When I’m feeling helpless and stuck, I’m tempted to shut down and ignore awareness of my inner world. ‘Since I’m not ruler of the universe, why should I care about anything? No one cares how I feel, so why bother?’ It sounds silly when I write it, but we are all tempted to shut down and cut ourselves off from the richness and urgency of our inner lives when we don’t get our way or when things feel overwhelming.

This shutting down take many forms. One of the most insidious (and socially acceptable) forms of shutting down to what is most important is busyness. When we are busy with they myriad things of our lives, we avoid our responsibility to notice and align our lives with what is most important. Hence Block’s first question: What refusal have I been postponing?

When everything is equal, we lose ourselves in the endless storm of external demands. In the busyness and turmoil of it all we rush from one thing to the next and there is no time to think (or feel) what it is we truly want. So one way into the process of acting on what matters is to begin to say ‘no.’ Until we claim our power to say ‘no’, we cannot say ‘yes.’

Personal Practice: Find some way today to practice disobedience to the rules you have made up for yourself in order to allow yourself the space for something that is wanting to be known.  What is one thing you could say ‘no’ to today that would give you more space to do something you have been wanting to do? It doesn’t have to be a big ‘no’, any old ‘no’ will do. This is just practice.

Searching For Clues

About a year ago, for some reason, I decided that I should write another book. I spent a number of months just mulling over the idea and considering what it might be about and feeling slightly guilty about not starting. Then the pandemic hit and I began writing these daily reflections. I now suspect that the book is hidden somewhere within what I’ve already written.

Sister Helen Prejean (Dead Man Walking) once said in a radio interview: ‘I’m always watching what I do to see what I believe.’ We can believe whatever we want and we can say whatever we want; but our actions reveal some deeper allegiance that is often unknown to our conscious minds.

One of the main directions of my life is to be fully present—to close the gap between myself and myself. I want to live an undivided life. When I trim my finger nails I want to be at one with myself. The temptation and the ancient pattern is to split so that there is one doing the trimming and one observing and commenting on the one who is doing the trimming. This habitual gap between ourselves and ourselves, is a painful one–often filled with judgments, opinions, self-consciousness and other less than pleasant experiences. These troublesome thoughts pose as helpers to make sure we do a good job, but mostly make it harder for us by distracting us from the task at hand. With their help, trimming my nails becomes an exercise in making sure I am good enough rather than a practice of self-care.

Sister Helen is not talking about this kind of watching. She’s talking about stepping back and being curious about larger patterns. It’s not about being good enough, it’s about noticing what is true. Do my actions align with my words? The Martian test is another way to approach this same endeavor. It goes like this: A Martian lands on the earth today and has to learn about you without understanding a word of what you say. He can only watch you go about your day. What would she learn from watching how you spend your time?

The point of this exercise is not to find out that we should exercise more, spend less time in front of screens, and eat better. Most of us already know this and it does little to help us—it just creates an invisible drag of guilt that is one more thing we carry around as we move through our day.

In order to learn something useful, we must look with genuine curiosity and kindness. While some of us can fairly easily muster this interest and compassion for others, it can be more challenging when we turn towards ourselves. Judgments and feelings of inadequacy so easily overwhelm our attempts at knowing more about ourselves.

The Martian perspective can help. She watches without judgment or prejudice. He observes just to see what is so. How do you spend your energy and time? Over the course of the day, what do you give your attention to? What do the patterns of your daily life say about the deeper values that animate you? What would the Martian learn about you from just watching?

So I’ve gone back and read through what I’ve written to see if I can find the book. I’ve gotten through March, April and May and I’m mostly pleased with what I read. Having written the pieces so long ago, it’s as if they were written by someone else. I’m reading for themes and to sense what kind of organization might hold some of these writings together in a book that would interest a reader (someone who would want to put this book on their bedside table) and a publisher (who would think there might be a market for another book by an obscure Zen teacher).

There’s a wonderful love of the garden and the natural world. Internal observations about the movement of my mind weave in with comments about the pandemic and politics. I like the shorter length of the pieces. They don’t really follow one from the next, so I don’t have to remember or follow any larger developing argument. I often smile at what I’ve written. Even in reading so many at a time, I feel invited into a slower and more intimate world. This seems important.

I try not to get overwhelmed by my doubts and judgments so that I can allow the deeper patterns to reveal themselves. Can I let the material organize itself as I try to do with each of these reflections I offer? Can I practice the kind of trust in the unfolding of the moment that I often write about?

I’m reminded of Peter Block’s wonderful book with the wonderful title: The Answer to How is Yes. Let me close with a list of questions he puts under the heading YES IS THE RIGHT QUESTION:

What refusal have I been postponing?
What commitment am I willing to make?
What is the price I am willing to pay?
What is the crossroad at which I find myself at this point in my life/work?
What is the question that, if I had the answer, would set me free?

Hide and Seek

Autumn leaves these days drop into the Temple pond. The skimmer catches them, but then catches too many and clogs. The circulation pump strains. Where is the pond monk who should be watching carefully and cleaning regularly?

I am the pond monk. Sometimes I’d rather be the pond. Sometimes I’d rather be the pond monk playing hooky.

I know the Abbot thinks I’m lazy, but what did those people ever know about me? Or about the pond? Once in a while is fine. Every day is boring. Too much to have to think about. And why should it be my job? Why am I the one who always has to take care of things? I’m going beyond hooky. I’m going on strike.

I’m striking for fewer hours, higher wages and early retirement. I want to work only on odd Wednesdays and days when the number of the day adds up to seven. Today is Tuesday and only sixth so I’m free to ignore the slight sound of the straining pump I hear coming in from the dark window. I’m sure it’s something else.

Today I’ll disappear into the woods. I’ll play hide and seek with my self. First I’ll hide, then I’ll see if I can find where I am. At first I’ll walk around confidently pretending to know. When that becomes obviously untrue, I’ll start calling my name. Playfully, then with more urgency. Finally I’ll plaintively entreat myself to come out. Please come out. I can’t find you anywhere and I’m getting worried about all of us.

I’ll hear the fear in the voice of the one who is seeking and I’ll say, Do you give up? Do you really give up? Then I’ll know where I am by the sound of my voice and I’ll find me immediately. Right where I was all along—in plain sight but too close to see. In that moment of finding we’ll find everything else too. All the animals and insects, The trees and mushrooms. The stones and lichen. The sky, earth and water. The wind. We’ll all be found together.

In our delight, we’ll laugh and laugh. We’ll laugh so hard our laughing will turn to crying. Then the crying will become a wild wailing. What a howl it will be! The whole world will cry out with us. All the pain and confusion will funnel through us and release itself into the night sky. A new twinkling star of pure energy will be born. Astronomers from around the world will be astonished.

Then I’ll wander home as if nothing has been disturbed. In the sweet quiet of the early morning I’ll take a flashlight out into the darkness. I’ll walk down to the pond and see for myself. Even if it’s not absolutely necessary, I’ll clean out the skimmer like I should have been doing all along. Then I’ll have a cup of coffee before giving a morning Dharma talk on The Harmony of Relative and Absolute.

Shitou Xiqian will harrumph and adjust position in his ancient resting place and all will be well.

Smugness and Karma

Saturday Night Live’s opening sketch was a lampoon of last Tuesday’s first Presidential debate—an easy target for humor after some of the frustration and anger passed. Jim Carrey played Joe Biden to Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump. Toward the end of the sketch, Biden (Carrey) says that he believes in science and karma—a clear jab at the President’s current condition as having COVID-19—which the President may or may not have had at the time of the debate, but clearly did have by the time the sketch was written. It was all quite funny. And also satisfying in a disturbing way.

Ever since I learned of Trump’s illness on Friday, I have had many different emotions. Yesterday, someone asked me if, from the Zen perspective, it was OK to feel smug. I said ‘No.’ Of course we all feel and think many different things in response to any event. But when we actively take pleasure in the suffering of others who ‘deserve it’, we put ourselves on shaky ground.

The blindness of us human beings appears endless. I can think of many times I have been filled with righteous clarity only to later become aware how partial my view and my actions were. Again and again, I need to ask for forgiveness from myself and from others. And that’s just on the personal level. When I look in a larger frame, I can see that though my intentions may be good, I am enmeshed in systems that have done and continue to do horrific things to people who are just like me. The color of their skin and their circumstances may be different, but their hearts beat like mine and they love their children and grandchildren just like me.

‘The Zen perspective’ does not actually divide the world into good and bad. While the ten precepts of the Zen tradition sound very similar to the Judeo-Christian ten commandments, they function in a very different way. Rather than moral requirements, the precepts are teachings on how to align our lives more closely with what we love. Buddhism does not hold that there is some external being who is sitting in judgment on us and our actions. But the teachings of karma say that there are innumerable consequences to our thoughts, words and actions. Karma is not something you have to ‘believe in.’ Rather, like all Zen teachings, it is a description of what others have found as they have looked closely into what it means to be a human being.

One of the precepts is about speaking truthfully. This is not something that any of us ‘have’ to do, but most of us find out that when we do not speak truthfully, there are consequences that lessen the fullness of our lives. When we don’t speak truthfully, those around us may get angry or withdraw or become less reliable in their actions toward us. Or a host of other responses, both external and internal—most all of which will diminish our lives in some way. The teaching of karma is simply an observation of the surprising power of what we think, what we say and what we do.

President Trump is a pathological liar. He sows distrust and escalates fear wherever he goes. His actions have greatly divided and diminished our country both internally and internationally. I think he is unfit to be President and I am actively working to ensure that Joe Biden becomes our next President.

AND, I too am incapable of always speaking the truth. I too am blind. My actions (and inactions) are the cause of suffering that I cannot even imagine from my comfortable warm room this dark October morning.

Wishing harm to someone else, harms me. Of course it is natural and understandable – a mind-state that arises out of our frustration, anger and fear. Martin Luther King Jr., however, was clear in his great struggle against injustice that if we become like our enemies, if we fall into hating them as they seem to hate us, then they have won.

So let us all continue to work with renewed energy toward a brighter future where the President of this country sees their job as serving and works to unite ALL people in confronting the complex and dangerous issues we face.

Terrible and Wonderful

The work of racial reckoning, of fundamentally changing our relationship to the environment to try to prevent catastrophe, and of recreating our social/political world so that every child grows up with adequate food, shelter, medical attention and opportunity is daunting, to say the least. But as I see all three of these issues and think what might be done, the most proximal and meaningful work to be done seems to be to elect a new President and create a new Democratic majority in the Senate.

Our current President denies the existence of institutional racism while using ancient fears and hatreds to mobilize his supporters, supports continued exploitation of our natural resources for the benefit of the few and has demonstrated his incompetent meanness in his essential disregard of the terrible virus that has killed over 200,000 Americans during the past seven months. Not to mention his constant lying that has destabilized our country more than any foreign interference could. And then there are the Republicans in Congress who have stood by as he has blatantly used the office of President to enrich himself and tear at the very fabric of our communal life and structures of government.

I hope that everyone who reads this will actively contribute in some way to this effort to defend our country and help move us toward beginning to deal with the challenges we face. Working together, we can make a difference. Two possible actions to take today are: 1) Give a donation (even very small) to Joe Biden, the Democratic Party, and or Democratic Senate candidates that are in close races or 2) Write letters to encourage people to get out and vote (Vote Forward has organized a hugely successful campaign that has reached one million potential voters and is now hoping to reach 500,000 more before late October.)

But most important is to make a plan to vote. Even if the outcome in your state is already decided, the ultimate number of voters who express their wish for a new President will be important in the chaos that Trump will create after the election.  I have also heard that voting in person may be an important way to make the will of the people more visible in the first days after the election as the mail-in ballots are being counted.

Meanwhile it’s Sunday morning. The cooler fall weather is here and the sugar maple by the entrance to the Temple garden is in full color. The last flowers of the season, these New England trees are coming into full blossom here in central Massachusetts. My grandson, whom I have taught to stoop down and stick his nose close to flowers and breathe huffily in and out has extended this practice to colorful leaves. He hasn’t quite understood that scent and smell are part of this ritual. Recently, he’s been insisting that I ‘smell’ the changing leaves along with him. So far there is no scent, but I suppose bowing down and breathing close to organic objects of beauty is as good a practice as any.

My advice for us all today is to not get lost in any one world. Or maybe better to allow yourself to lost in each world you encounter. When you take your shower, be fully naked and slippery and warm. When you read the paper or listen to the news, be outraged and angered at the injustice that appears. When you step outside, breathe in and out huffily and appreciate the coolness of the air that holds calm beauty of each falling leaf.