Overnight With Family

Everyone else is asleep and the sun has just risen over the northeastern horizon. A few clouds gently flow southward, above the main event. I myself sit on a half-couch by the second-floor windows looking east.

I slept well but was troubled by meeting someone who seemed quite nice, but later I discovered he had been an adherent of the psychotherapy/cult my father had espoused. He was nearly my age but had a young girlfriend who was eager to make my acquaintance. I was tempted but then things got fuzzy and for the rest of the dream I didn’t know if something had happened or not. If it had, I was sure I had ruined my life and would live in fear and shame forever. Every once in a while I would gratefully realize I was dreaming, but most of the time I was fully enveloped in dreaming of dreaming and waking.

Yesterday afternoon it was in the high 60’s. This morning it’s below freezing. I wonder about the two sweet pea seedlings I planted in the garden. I knew it was too early, but they were growing so fast—sending roots down through the bottom of the peat pot and climbing toward the grow-lights—and I read in an article in the Irish Times that they can tolerate a light frost so…we’ll see.

Spring is like this. While the overall trend toward warmth is assured, variation within the clear direction is to be expected. Most everything is like this. Nothing is just one thing. My father died years ago and still he shadows my dreams. Things that have happened in my life are the ground I sprouted from—those things and my stories and reactions then and now to those things have made and are continually making me who I am. And the things that haven’t happened to me, unfulfilled plans and dreams—things I have read about or seen images of—all these things are part of me too.

Life does not unfold evenly toward maturity and wisdom but seems rather to bounce around—zigzagging back and forth within as many dimensions as we can imagine. Foolishness and delusion mix endlessly with their opposites just as stories of the past mix with the hopes and fears of the future to create the present dream of now.

Yet the sun rises this morning slightly further to the north from where it did yesterday. Several months ago, in the midst of winter, from this vantage point, it rose over an entirely different neighborhood. I suppose this is relatively invariable, the seasonal trek of the rising sun from the northeast in the winter to exactly east on the spring solstice to the southeast in summer and then back again.

Meanwhile, we dream our dreams and call them our lives. We do our best to wake up and make something of ourselves. We are told the long arc of history bends toward justice but many of us wonder how to add the weight of our lives to this hopeful but uncertain proposition how to spend ourselves wisely.

Back home, my sweet pea shoots may or may not have survived the overnight cold. Being naturally cautious, I only planted two of the seven that sprouted in the warmth of the grow-lights. So I continue to dream of fragrant and delicate blossoms climbing the wooden wall and keep my options open.

Guilty

I just happened to be driving in the car a little after five o’clock yesterday afternoon. I turned on the radio just in time to hear the announcer say that they were going to be cutting away to a live feed of the judge reading the verdict in the George Floyd trial. I, like many, had been afraid that the jury would be deadlocked, or worse, that they would do what so many previous juries in America have done: let white men and women avoid punishment and accountability for their acts of violence against people with black and brown skin.

I was surprised that the verdict came so quickly and suspected that meant there was a good chance that they were going to find for the prosecution. I had just reached my destination, the parking lot of the Temple, when the judge read the verdict that Derek Chauvin was found guilty on all three counts. I was relieved and saddened. Relieved that the jury had agreed with the seemingly incontrovertible evidence of the ten minutes of video. Relieved that, at last, our criminal justice system has held a police officer accountable for the use of excessive force. And relieved that the pent-up rage at centuries of white brutality and intimidation would not erupt in our cities across the country as it would have if Chauvin had been acquitted.

I was also saddened. Saddened that this event happened—that innumerable causes and conditions led Chauvin and his accomplices to view their brutal actions as justified and acceptable, that many of us find ourselves relieved and even amazed that simple justice was served, and that a man lost his life and another man’s life was destroyed by his own actions.

The ongoing nature and scope of our human brutality one to another is nearly incomprehensible. We organize ourselves into families and tribes and nations and then find reasons to dislike, hate and kill each other—and do it with an attitude of righteous necessity. Many years ago, in the middle of one of America’s small wars of aggressive self-protection, a man I know was banned from the St. Patrick’s Day parade because he wanted to carry a sign that said: ‘Do not kill means do not kill.’ Jesus and the ten commandments are not equivocal on this point, yet so many have been killed in the name of Christianity—and in the name of just about every other cause, religion and government I can think of.

As usual, our current President responded immediately, empathetically and put this event into the larger frame of our country’s ongoing struggle to live up to the high ideals of our founders (who also found it impossible to live up to their lofty words.) The NYTimes captured Biden’s remarks this way:

President Biden praised the verdict in a nationwide address at the White House but called it a “too rare” step to deliver “basic accountability” for Black Americans.

“It was a murder in full light of day, and it ripped the blinders off for the whole world to see,” Mr. Biden said. “For so many, it feels like it took all of that for the judicial system to deliver just basic accountability.”

Biden went on to say:

The battle for the soul of this nation has been a constant push and pull for more than 240 years — a tug of war between the American ideal that we’re all created equal and the harsh reality that racism has long torn us apart.

At our best, the American ideal wins out.  So we can’t leave this moment or look away, thinking our work is done.  We have to look at it — we have to — we have to look at it as we did for those 9 minutes and 29 seconds.  We have to listen.  “I can’t breathe.  I can’t breathe.”  Those were George Floyd’s last words.  We can’t let those words die with him.  We have to keep hearing those words.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. President, for calling us again to join in the ongoing work of our nation. The momentum of institutional racism, misogyny and economic oppression is strong and it is only through our everyday thoughts, words and actions that this country will continue to move toward the land we aspire to be—a land of justice, freedom and dignity for all.

Creative Process

I tag along whenever I can,
like a younger brother
though, in truth, I am the older.

He is brighter and smarter
yet I know more and
am purported to be
the responsible one
though others in the
family do not always
agree on the later point.

Yesterday we made
dandelion soup outside
using only the warm spring
sun, five fresh-picked
dandelion blossoms and
available rainwater. He
did the pouring and
the stirring while I
closely observed the full point
of his easeful attention.
I’m happy to follow
his idiosyncratic process
and I like to think we
have developed quite
a creative partnership,
the two of us. He thought
it needed more spice and I
suggest the tiny tree
blossoms recently fallen.
I pointed to the intricate
structure of their sepals,
stamen and radial pistols,
and was going on to a further
discussion of pollination
and the wonder of so
many small green flowers
showered down from such
large trees, but the tender
things themselves were
plenty enough for him
and right into the soup
they went.

Later, we added potting soil
from the yellow bucket, sang
Old MacDonald many times
through passing melody and
lyrics casually back and forth,
used the watering can
to refill our rainwater sink
and delight over and over
in the pouring wetness of it all.

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

Don’t Be Upset

In the second century, Marcus Aurelius wrote about how we should respond to events in our lives that don’t turn out how we think they should:

First, don’t be upset. Nothing happens that isn’t in accord with universal nature, and before long you won’t exist at all…

I would like to explain and perhaps amend his first sentence, because it now reads in a way that could exacerbate the very upset he is advising us against. Perhaps this moralistic reading is simply because of the force of the stream of what William James called ‘once-born religions.’ In looking at American religions, James divided them into two categories ‘once-born’ and ‘twice-born’.

Once-born religions assert that the problems we encounter are of our own making and if that we change our thinking we will be successful and happy. Norman Vincent Peale’s bestseller of the 50’s THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING and Rhonda Bryne’a more recent THE SECRET are two expositions of the essence of this kind of religious perspective—if you are upset, don’t worry, nothing is wrong. Just change your thinking and you’ll be fine. Zen Buddhism is sometimes mistakenly lumped in this category as we are encouraged to ‘get our Zen on’ and not be bothered by the events of our lives because all suffering is just in the mind.

Twice-born religions believe that salvation, or true freedom, is only possible when we are willing to die. This process of necessary death is imagined and presented in a variety of ways. For Christians, the central imagery is of Christ dying on the cross. As believers, we are encouraged to follow his example as we surrender our small life to attain everlasting life. In Zen Buddhism, we talk about dying to our ‘little self’ so we can realize that we are part of something much larger and that the ups and downs of life are not an aberration but are simply how life is. (Or, in software speak, suffering is a feature not a bug.) Our true peace (the peace that passes understanding) comes from dying to our opinion of how things should be and finding our freedom within the circumstances that are already here.

My first understanding of ‘don’t be upset’ in the above quote is as a command telling me that the next time I am upset I should just tell myself I shouldn’t be upset and everything will be fine. Occasionally this works for me. But when I am really upset or disturbed, verbal instructions like this mostly don’t work.

In fact, when I am upset, telling myself that I shouldn’t be upset often just adds to my upset. Not only am I upset, but I feel that being upset is another example of my failure as a person so now I am even worse off than I thought.

Perhaps we could change the sentence to read ‘you don’t have to be upset.’ This is better but could still be used by my judging, self-improving self as another way in which I have failed. ‘I don’t have to be upset and yet here I am upset again.’

Maybe more editing is required. We could say ‘When you’re upset, be upset, but you might also consider that Nothing happens that isn’t in accord with universal nature, and before long you won’t exist at all…’ But then it becomes my plagiarized and altered quote rather than Aurelius’s.

It’s tricky territory because most everyone I know suffers so much because of our opinion of how things should be. On the other hand, disappointment, failure, ill-health and death are inevitable parts of our lives. We clearly need a new religion—a ‘thrice-born’ religion that can include everything. I would want it to involve a lot of singing and dancing and being silly—a lot of crying, discouragement and confusion. A lot of walking in the garden, wandering in wild place, and being with young children. In this new religion we would be allowed to feel whatever we feel and to notice whatever we notice. We could compare notes, tell stories and investigate together the wonder and terror of being human.

Garden As Teacher

Yesterday’s snow covering has receded and should be gone by noon. My menagerie of green seedlings has weathered the storm from under the comfort of grow lights in the meditation hall. In the continuing absence of human beings, I have converted part of the Zendo to a greenhouse. A few largish houseplants stand by the windows and keep guard over the eerie glow emanating from beneath two oblong metal hoods. Scores of seedlings geometrically arranged in trays bask in the artificial light as they begin their small and miraculous lives.

I suppose I should write about something other than my garden the delight I take in how it organizes my life, but a friend the other day told me that after reading one post about my garden, he went out to look at his garden with new eyes. That’s all the encouragement I need.

And what is your garden? A garden is whatever we pay attention to, for everything everywhere is always growing and changing. A garden is any place where we appreciate life-and-death. A garden is where we witness life rising up, manifest itself in some particular form and behavior, then vanishing. This is the way of the universe, from single-celled algae in the pond to the swirling galaxies of our immeasurable universe.

When we pay attention to something, life itself becomes our teacher. We learn how to be human—how to be responsive and flexible to the dance of coming and going. If we are persistent, we can sometimes begin to get a felt sense of the reality that holds us so precisely. Paying close attention to any piece of life can begin to counteract the false evidence of our senses that we are separate, discrete and self-determining beings. The more you pay attention, the more the swirling patterns of life become self-evident and reassuring.

A friend asked me how I keep track of all the seedlings and all the various rhythms and needs of the garden. I told her that I can’t keep track, but I just put myself in their proximity and then it becomes clear what needs to be done. Sometimes more water. Sometimes more light. Sometimes transplanting. The wonderful cacophony of rhythms, needs, and stages comes to my ears without effort. I give a hand here, change positions of something there—doing my small part while the plants and trees and soil themselves manifest their miraculous nature.

I feel lucky to be included. Lucky to have meaningful work. Lucky to have a way in that is beyond words and achievements. I just spend time and help out. I feel like a little boy hanging out at the corner barbershop who is happy to be among the coming and going of real people. Amidst the smells of lotions, the snipping of shears and the buzzing of electric clippers, I run little errands for the barbers and help out where I can. Here, life is alive and bustling and I am held in the warm comfort of it all.

So what is your garden? Growing things of any sort, from houseplants to small window box of flowers is plenty. Cats, dogs, fish and even snails too are teachers sent from life itself to teach us life itself. Or playing and listening to music. Or preparing food. Or paying attention to the placement of furniture or the folding of our clothes and sweeping of floors.

As another friend (Walt Whitman) once said: All truths wait in all things. Today, I remind myself to learn as I go and join in the swirling rising, the particular manifesting and the gentle falling away that is the endless dance of the universe and me.