On Being Nice

When my brother and I were growing up, my parents went through various phases of what our religious education should look like. This was a matter of some public import as my father was the minister at the local Presbyterian church. I remember being quite unhappy the year we were surreptitiously enrolled in summer bible school and thereby losing a week of our outdoor play.

We duly endured the week of boredom, but I don’t remember ever having to go again. In retrospect I wonder if the program was canceled the following year or my parents were just trying to avoid open insurrection on our part.

Then there was the time that we had a family goal of memorizing bible verses. I can’t remember how we did it, but I do still remember a verse from Psalm 133: ‘Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.’ I was puzzled by this passage as I felt that my brother and I spent much of our time fighting and competing with each other. It felt like just another admonition to stop causing trouble and to put on a surface show of niceness.

My great Aunt Evelyn (or was it Elinor?) added to this perception one summer when she complimented me and my brother on how well we got along. She was an older and more formal person and my brother and I were always on our best behavior when we were visiting her at her mansion in tidewater Virginia. We tussled and punched each other when she wasn’t looking and smiled nicely when she was.

When she complimented us on our behavior, I told her that we argued and fought a lot. She said that it doesn’t matter what you do in private, it’s what you do in public that counts. This too, did not make sense to me, but I clearly understood that these are the rules of the game. A veneer of niceness is required and most people have no interest in what is actually going on inside you.

I myself learned that growing up meant ignoring what was going on inside me. It was often messy and confusing—so many feelings that kept changing. Rather than voice them and cause disturbance, it was much easier to pretend they didn’t exist. When my mother said we could stay up an extra half hour to watch some special program on a school night if we were not grumpy the next morning, I learned that no matter how I felt the next morning, all I had to do was pretend I was fine and she would be happy.

So I was, for the most part, a well-behaved boy. But the cost of this winning strategy was an increasing distance from my self. Practicing not paying attention, I learned not to pay attention. But when we turn away from what we don’t like, it rarely just goes away. More often it goes underground.

The poet Robert Bly used the image of a black bag to talk about all this turning away. He said that we all carry a black bag with us through our lives. Whenever we encounter something dark or painful or unwanted, we simply put it in our black bag and go on. While this strategy has immediate benefits, the problem is that our back of unwanted and unprocessed experiences gets heavier and heavier. Finally we are so encumbered by that which we have not allowed ourselves to experience that we can hardly move.

Bly’s encouragement is to open up the black bag. Open up to that which is unacceptable—all the things we have not allowed ourselves to see and feel and know. Nothing is really hidden. Everything you have ever experienced is with you right now. There is a gift of the dark and unwanted.

Turning toward the darkness is turning toward what is alive – turning toward the burning. This is not easy and only happens over time. But when we do this work of turning toward, we find that things are not what we think they are—that even the most painful and unacceptable experiences have some gift to give. We are transformed through darkness. This is not for the faint of heart, but is a requirement for anyone who wants to live into the fullness and freedom of being human.

But I also meant to say how grateful I am for what I did learn from my parents and how many passages and teachings from the bible are still with me – still resonate inside and guide me on my path. I have especially been partial to the Psalms—those lovely songs of discouragement, lament and praise. I woke up thinking of one that has been with me for the past few days as I try to come to terms with the senseless killing of George Floyd and the outrage that has arisen in and around us.

It’s from a lovely collection of translations and adaptation by Stephen Mitchell: A BOOK OF PSALMS.

Psalm 4

Even in the midst of great pain,
Lord, I praise you for that which is.
I will not refuse this grief
or close myself to this anguish.
Let shallow men pray for ease:
‘Comfort us; shield us from sorrow.’
I pray for whatever you send me,
and I ask to receive it as your gift.
You have put a joy in my heart
greater than all the world’s riches.
I lie down trusting the darkness,
for I know that even now you are here.

Personal Practice: Sit quietly for a moment. Then turn your attention some bit of poetry or sacred writing that has touched you during your life. It might be something someone said recently, or it might be a passage you memorized long ago. Whatever comes, hold those words with you for a while. Remember when you first came across the particular passage. After a while, write it down and share it with a friend. Appreciate the wisdom inside you that resonates with these particular words.

Fires Burning

Two young black men from Minneapolis were briefly interviewed on the radio yesterday afternoon. They were at one of many peaceful protests to express grief and outrage over the killing of another black man, George Floyd. The reasonable interviewer asked them if they planned to go home and obey the curfew later on.

They both said they couldn’t go home, they had to stay because their voices had not yet been heard. They sounded excited and committed. I fully expect that they stayed in the streets last night. Their young hearts were already on fire with the terrible injustice of their lives. I hope they were not harmed or consumed by the violence that has become so visible over this past week.

In the midst of our pandemic, a black man’s death was recorded on video—a policeman kneeling on his neck as he pleaded to be allowed to breath.  Eight minutes. As he stopped moving. No respect. No mercy. No decency. If it was the first, it would be just a gruesome and brutal story. But the violence in our country has been with us since our beginnings. The shame of the systematic genocide of Native Americans and vast violence of slavery are woven into our current systems in ways that we have yet to reckon with and atone for.

Usually, for most of us white folk, the violence is hidden. We can pretend that the great slogans of our country are true—sweet land of liberty with freedom and justice for all. We can be grateful for the heroes of the civil rights movements in the 60’s—for King’s great vision of non-violent action to change the hearts and minds of America. We can say that so much progress has been made.

But the string of killings of black people over the past few years is truly horrifying. Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Delrawn Small – to mention just a few. These deaths of black men that would usually be covered up by the machinery and protections of the people in power, have been made public—caught on video and displayed for us all to witness—again and again. The very police and law enforcement officers that many of us view as the protectors of peace and justice have turned out to be implicated as the enforcers of a brutal system of racism that is our national legacy and our current reality.

We are all traumatized by these images of brutality. Another man interviewed yesterday was asked what the impact on him was of this murder and the ongoing parade of public murders of young black men. He said he saw himself, his father and his sons as the man on the ground. Pinned and helpless. Dying again and again.

We must all, at some point, begin to see that it is our son too who has been killed. Our precious brother, partner, and friend. George Floyd was human like you and me. He lived a life and had dreams like me and you. He probably had grandparents who delighted in his first steps and encouraged him to find his way in a world that was often dangerous and unforgiving for boys born with skin the color of his.

Let us mourn the tragic and needless death of this precious human being. Let us mourn the violence rampant in our country that makes this just the latest of a long line of killings. Let us uncover the fires that burn in our hearts—the fires of justice—the fires of conviction. Let us vow to not turn away. Let us vow to join the ongoing struggle against violence and oppression in all its pernicious forms.

Personal Practice: Imagine you are being interviewed on the radio and you are asked: ‘How has this tragedy impacted you? How do these events touch your mind and heart?’ Give yourself permission to be touched by what you have heard and seen. It is not a time to hold it together, but rather to mourn and grieve. Allow yourself to feel what you feel and know what you know.

*

Momentary Balance

The improvised cold frame where I hardened off my little seedlings is nearly empty. Most of them have now reside in their appointed positions in flower pots and the garden. At this moment, the petunias are the most showy of my successes.

I planted them in mid-March, then set them out in the cold frame in early May. In mid-May I risked a hard frost and set them out in containers. Now they are wildly blooming in the long plastic planters I set on top of the rails of the access ramp at the Temple. Just a few feet from where I sit, buddled up against the morning chill with my laptop and cup of tea that was warm just a few minutes ago.

The planters themselves are just resting on top of the railing. I put petunias in these pots, in this location every year. I really should secure them but I don’t. Twice, in heavy winds last year, one of the pots tumbled down to the garden below—a twenty-foot fall. The petunias were a little bruised and disturbed, but they survived both falls. Maybe this year I’ll secure them.

I’d like to know they’ll be OK.

I’d like to know that I’ll be OK. But who can say?

An ongoing joke with a close friend: ‘Will everything be OK?’ one of us asks. The other one replies, ‘Short-term or long-term?’ The joke is that in the short term most things will find a way to work themselves out so the answer is ‘Yes, everything will be OK.’ But in the long-term the answer has to be ‘No. Your extended prognosis is sickness, old-age and death.’ Not a pretty prospect.

When I began to seriously practice Zen in my late twenties, I was clear that part of my intention was to be able to ‘die well’. Even at that tender age, I was concerned with the certain end that no one talked about—you work hard and do something worthwhile, then it’s all taken away—not just what you possess, but your physical and mental capacities—even your memories eventually vanish.

You can hold out for some vision of heaven elsewhere—that we will be reunited with those we love and live in perfect peace forever. But I could never work out the details of this in a way that satisfied me. If you are married twice, do you live in perfect peace with your first partner or your second? Or all three of you? And what kind of life could possibly be interesting and satisfying for the rest of eternity?

How to meet our predicted and unavoidable death? How to meet the multiple deaths of each day? The plans that fall through. The friends and family that don’t always seem to take us into account or care and support us the way we would want them to. Parts of us are dying moment after moment.

There is no possibility of holding onto what we have or even who we think we are. The David of yesterday, and his whole world, has vanished. The memories are still strong, and much seems the same, but pausing and looking closer, I can notice that this particular morning has never happened before.

The petunias are solidly balanced on the railing. Their wine colored trumpet-like flowers are already too numerous to count. Maybe this is heaven? The miracle of delicate flowers emerging from the damp dirt of infinite possibility this cool morning. I can predict there will be more and different flowers for many weeks now. Who knows, maybe the planters will even one day be secured to the railing.

Maybe there’s a place to abide right here in the middle of it all.

Surrounded by uncertainty,
without doubt, flowers bloom.

Personal Practice: Take a moment to reflect on your prognosis of sickness, old age and death. This is your human birthright. What if it’s not some giant mistake of the part of the creator of the universe? What if the transience of our lives is part of what makes joy and appreciation possible? See if you can remember at various moments throughout the day how precious and miraculous this very life is in every moment.

Teachings of the Seasons

The crabapple tree is past its glory. The small white blossoms that lit up the tree just a few weeks ago now hang limp and brown. One might think the show is over, but the real work is just commencing. Now is the beginning of the fruition—literally.

Among my many teachers is a woman named White Eagle. She is a Native American teacher based in the high desert of New Mexico. I have only spent a few weeks with her but she, like so many others, gave me gifts that I carry with me.

Writing about the seasons of the crabapple tree, I recall the teachings of the medicine wheel. White Eagle taught us that, in her Native American tradition, the medicine wheel represents the sacred ground of the cosmos and all the beings of life. She led us through several different ceremonies within the medicine wheel she had constructed with a large circle of stones marking a carefully tended open space within. Entering into the medicine wheel, we were taught to acknowledge our sacred and primal kinship with all beings by pausing, offering a pinch of tobacco and saying ‘all my relations.’

‘All my relations’ is a way of naming the radical non-separation that is the truth of our human life. The truth we so often forget. A sense of separation is the norm for most human being. We feel cut off from the world around us, from each other and from ourselves and we suffer. In the distress that comes from our delusion of separation, we act out of greed, anger and ignorance—trying to get what we think we need to heal our pain and dis-ease.

Our human work is to try to remember—try to find our way back to the truth of our original connection. The medicine wheel is one of the tools some Native American traditions use to come home to the circle of the creation—through the veil of our persistent delusion of separation.

Within the medicine wheel, the four directions are honored as phases in the ongoing cycles of life. Each direction represents a season and an aspect of our human experience. These seasons happen within the calendar year, but also happen multiple times during each season and even each day. Each time is seen to be necessary and sacred. Each season is to be named and met with reverence and appreciation.

East is spring—the direction of new life. New life emerges from the cold and dar of winter. Things planted long ago sprout and blossom. Bees hum and birds sing. Life is full of new possibilities. This is the time of beginnings. Beginnings of projects—of new adventures—of new lives.

This is an exciting time and is also a time of careful planning. Sometimes it requires the hard work of cultivating the ground for what is to come. Things are vulnerable in this time; new life often requires our protection and nurturing.

South is summer—the direction of fullness of being. Summer is playing on the beach—is warmth and ease. Hot summer nights and the fullness of passion and desire. The south also represents this time of comfort and being nourished by the easy long days.

This is a joyous and restorative time—one we often forget. Lost in our plans and worries, some of us need to intentionally create the space to relax. We have gotten so attached to our busyness, that this aspect, of just sitting on the porch in the middle of the day for a few moments of doing nothing, often gets forgotten.

West is autumn—the fruition and the falling. Autumn is the time of harvest, when the work of spring and summer comes to completion. The fruits of our labors ripen and we celebrate what has been accomplished through us. It is also the time of letting go of the forms and functions of summer. Leaves fall and we have to let things fall away.

This is the time of naming and appreciating ourselves and others. This season also gets forgotten by many of us. We’re off to pursue our next plans or we feel we should be modest and so not notice the results of our hard work. Naming and celebrating our accomplishments is an important part of being able to move forward with resilience and renewed enthusiasm.

North is winter—the darkness, cold and death. While many of us approach this season of life with trepidation and fear, it is equally important. Each season supports and allows all the other seasons. Winter is falling back—letting ourselves rest in the darkness of not knowing. The bleeding heart plants that bloomed so gloriously in the Temple garden this spring, were, I believe, quite content through the winter when they were buried in the cold, dark ground.

Winter is a time of non-arising. Instead of busying ourselves with plans and activities, we rest in the bosom of the mysterious creation itself. Yes, there is sadness and loss, but this darkness is the rich humus that nourishes what is to come.

These seasons of our life follow the seasons of the world around us and also overlap and occur moment after moment. Each morning is a new spring. Each night is the winter of darkness.

The crabapple is moving from the extravagant joys of spring into the long easeful summer. The fruition of the fall is already present in the nascent fruit that has been set. Now we just wait.

Personal Practice: Be conscious of the seasons of your day. Notice the many beginnings each day has within it. Notice the many feelings and activities and interactions that sprout up, seemingly out of nowhere. Take some time for the ease of summer – even a few moments of just sitting in the sun or shade can be a whole season. Appreciate the things you do – the small accomplishments of the day are moments to notice and be grateful for. Notice too the things that fall apart, the endings, the losses. Remember that sometimes there is nothing that can be done—and that this too is part of life. Appreciate the seasons of this day.

Do Nothing

In the late 80’s, I attended one of the first conferences featuring women Zen teachers. It was at the Providence Zen Center and I don’t remember much about it except one particular moment. The late Zen teacher Maurine Stuart, one of the first western women to receive Zen teaching transmission, was speaking. She was going on and on in front of a group of about sixty or seventy of us about the great 9^th century Chinese Zen Master Linji (Rinzai in Japanese). I was moderately interested but was also thinking about my dinner plans when she paused.  She looked directly at me, one of the few men in the audience, and said, with a great smile on her face: ‘The great Zen Master Rinzai said: ‘Doooooooooooo…..nothing.’  She looked away and went on talking.

I have not forgotten.

For these past thirty some years, I have tried to understand what this wondrous injunction might mean. From the everyday perspective, it is clearly nonsense. We have to do things. We have obligations and necessities. We have wants and needs. We must constantly choose one thing over another. Do I have a cup of coffee now or do I wait till after meditation? Do I stay inside to begin to clear off the piles of papers teetering on my desk or do I go outside and plant the seedlings longing for a home in the garden?

This doing nothing found its way into Zen Buddhist teachings through China’s rich and subtle Taoist tradition. Lao Tze, the Taoist teacher who dates back to 6^th century BC, wrote of the wondrous possibilities of wei wu wei – doing not doing. The emphasis here, as it is with Linji, is in the active engagement required by this form of ‘not-doing’.

How do I actively ‘Dooooo…nothing?’ Is it possible, even when doing something to do nothing? My experience has taught me that it is.

Doing nothing is an invitation to abandon our great and complex plans and give ourselves to the activity of the moment. Doing nothing is an invitation to the intimacy of everyday life. Not transcendence or going beyond, but rather fully entering and participating with what is already here.

Usually, in our activity, we fix our focus on the outcomes we want. ‘I’ll do this so that will happen.’ This is important and useful thinking that allows us to pay our bills and plant our gardens. We might say it is necessary but not sufficient. A life that is filled with plans and obligations and effort is exhausting and ultimately disappointing.

But what if we did whatever we were doing without being so focused on what will happen next? What if we appreciated the activity of the moment without regard to the outcome? Of course, sometimes we get what we want and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we succeed and sometimes we fail. Sometimes we are praised and sometimes we are blamed. What if that’s not a problem?

The active engagement is partly to begin to stop or limit the habit pattern of the mind’s leaping ahead. The default position that we have practiced all our lives is to be thinking ahead. Without clear intention, the horse of the mind usually gallops off into the future and drags us along with it.

The luxury of doing nothing is available to us all. Fingers dart and poke across the keyboard without thought. The light shines on the wet porch floor from last night’s rain. The trees, dressed now in their full summer leaves, watch as the uncut Temple lawn blooms with buttercups.

Personal Practice – Make it your job today to do nothing at some point. Don’t overdo it your first day. Start small. Pick a small task and give yourself to it. Make your bed, clean your desk, mow your lawn. Appreciate that there will come a time when you will not be able to do this simple activity. Lose yourself in the particularness of the doing.

Or take ten minutes to sit and stare out a window. Or walk through the garden without pulling one weed. Practice receiving what is already here.