Living Into Impermanence
- At April 13, 2020
- By drynick
- In Reflections
0
Most of us live much of our lives as if we were in a dream. The teachings of Zen Buddhism are guideposts to help us wake up to the life and the world that is already fully here. These teachings are not meant to be accepted at face value, but rather to be considered and explored. Many of these teachings are both subtle and self-evident.
One of these teachings that I’ve been thinking about recently is the teaching of impermanence—that observation that everything in the universe is in a constant state of change. While many of us might generally agree with this statement, it is actually hard to remember on a day-to-day basis.
We seem to live in a world of fixed objects: the car, the tree, the stars and me. These objects behave in mostly predictable ways. When I put my car in the garage at night, it is always there the next morning. The copper beech tree in front of the Boundless Way Temple always stands in the same place, making leaves in the spring and dropping them in the fall. I count on things to be what they are and to behave according to my sense of how things go.
This works pretty well most of the time. I almost always find my car when I need it and the beech tree is always on my right as I drive out. But there are several problems with this way of looking at the world as a collection of ‘things.’ The first is that these things that seem so solid are actually in a process of falling apart. While this is evident the morning that the car won’t start, it often comes as a surprise.
The car I get into this morning seems to be pretty much the same as the car I got into yesterday. (Though these days I’m not getting in the car very much on any day.) I don’t notice much change. But twenty years from now, whether it is driven or not, the car that works so well now will most likely not be on the road anymore. And though the beech tree may still be standing then, given another hundred years, it too will certainly be gone. And this gradual disappearance assumes the absence of any sudden events like a car accident or a lightening strike or an infestation of beech tree loving insects.
The world around us is in constant change. Nothing is as solid as it seems. Everything is falling apart and new things are constantly being born. And this is not a problem—unless we’re in the business of trying to hold things together, then it is frustrating and scary. Beginning to remember and see the flow of change around us gives us the opportunity to align with this natural process rather than trying to fight against the way things are. The author and teacher Byron Katie once wrote: ‘You can fight reality, but reality always wins.’
The second problem with seeing the world as a collection of things is that people, in particular, are simply not who we think they are. After many decades of marriage, it is tempting to think that I know who my partner is. She has a name and often behaves in ways that seem predictable. But everything I think I know about her is only a small part of who she really is. And the more I relate to her (or anyone else) from the place of thinking I ‘know’, the less I am actually able to be in relationship with the person that she actually is right now.
The third problem is with the assumption that I myself am a solid thing. Though I can be aware of new wrinkles on my face in the mirror, I mostly think I know who I am. This sense of my stable ongoing identity is useful in making plans and cooking dinner, it can easily blind me to the actually nature of the falling apart and being born that is constantly happening within me.
My encouragement for today (for myself and anyone else who is interested) is to notice change. Can you slow down and look again at the ordinary things of your life? Look for what is different. Allow things to fall apart and see what new emerges on its own.
Not Just One Thing
- At April 12, 2020
- By drynick
- In Reflections
- 0
We are living in the time of the novel corona virus stopped civilization in its tracks. This is the time of staying at home, of schools closing, of the economy tanking and unemployment rising to heights not seen since the great depression. A time of fear and anxiety. A time where the fragility of human beings and their creations is undeniable. A time of uncertainty that stretches out ahead of us almost indefinitely.
While all these statements are true. As I write and then read them over, I feel a rising sense of anxiety and fear in my body. But these statements are not True with a capital T. They are one description of ‘life’ in this moment. There are an infinite number of truths left out of these statements that are of equal or greater importance.
Language has the capacity to appear definitive. When we describe a situation, our words can appear to have a completeness that is simply not possible. Anytime we talk about life, or what we are going through, our description is necessarily partial. Our words and summaries may capture something essential and true, but they leave out much more than they describe.
Anything we say or any image we create of ‘what is going on’ is a story. While these stories are helpful and necessary, their appearance of completeness and solidity can be confusing and limiting. These days, much of what we’re hearing, seeing and talking about is about our current crisis—COVID-19—infection rates—economic downturns, etc, etc. The news is dire and the situation is critical.
But life is not the story we tell about it. Life itself is open to a thousand different stories—all of them true and none of them complete or lasting.
Several people recently have talked with me about their puzzlement and even guilt at encountering moments of joy and ease in the midst of the current dominant narrative of fear and anxiety. Is it OK to feel joy? Is it OK to be at ease in the midst of a global pandemic?
We can all get lost in the story of fearfulness, when life is always so much more. Of course we should be careful and work together to meet the challenges of these times, but we are also always alive and this is indeed a wondrous thing. Joy and ease arise moment after moment but if we are lost in our story of anxiety, we may miss them.
When we pay attention to our actual experience, we can begin to see that no narrative is necessary. Let the stories come and go. Believe them all and don’t believe any of them.
Life is just itself and is always available.
In This Together?
- At April 11, 2020
- By drynick
- In Reflections
- 0
I check the local numbers every day. And I’m not talking about the state lottery. It’s now the COVID-19 lottery. Though life is always subject to random events, this aspect of chance looms greater in our lives. Whether I get infected depends on a number of factors, many of which are out of my control. I can wear my mask and keep my six-foot distance when I go out. I can wash my hands religiously and watch Netflix endlessly. But I am still at risk.
A number of years ago, a doctor at Ground Rounds at UMass Memorial Hospital said that your health outcomes are dependent on three factors: genetics, behavior and chance. First is the physical constitution you are born with. Next is the food you eat, the exercise you get and how you care for yourself. Then there is what happens. Perfectly healthy people who that eat well and exercise regularly come down with terminal diseases along with everyone else.
But another factor that determines how healthy you are is becoming more obvious as researchers begin to look more closely at who is getting infected with COVID-19 and how severe the impact. Your race.
We have known from quite early on in the pandemic that older people and people with pre-existing medical conditions are more at risk for serious medical conditions and death from COVID-19. Recently, however, researchers have reported that the Black and Latinx populations are getting infected and dying at significantly higher rates than the white population. In New York City, Black and Latinx are being killed at twice the rate as white people. In Massachusetts, recently released data shows that Black and Latinx people were twice as likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19 as white people. What is going on here?
The COVID-19 virus does not appear to operate differently in Black and Latinx communities, but rather a consistent lack of access to health care and conditions that foster healthy conditions have put these communities more at risk. People in Black and Latinx communities are much more likely to have pre-existing health conditions that put them at risk and much less likely to have access to health care to help them meet these challenges. David Williams, a professor of public health at Harvard put it this way: “Coronavirus has not created health disparities. What it has done is highlight these disparities.”
We’re all in this together, but if you’re rich or famous, you can get tested if you’re concerned you might have the virus. The rest of us have to wait. We’re all in this together, but if you happen to be white or have a large savings account or live in a house with lots of space around it, you don’t have to be quite as worried.
We do depend on each other to work together to slow the spread of COVID-19. We need to care for whoever is afflicted by the virus and its many impacts; physical, economic and personal. These are difficult times. But we must also keep our eyes open to what these times are revealing about the disparities that are often invisible to many of us. Can this time be an impetus to change how we view the basic right to health care? Can this time lead us to treat unseen workers that are now so clearly sustaining us with more respect and better working conditions?
We’ll see.
Doubts About My self
- At April 10, 2020
- By drynick
- In Reflections
- 0
I wake up earlier than usual this morning. Yesterday’s wind has blown the skies clear. A full moon pours light onto the plastic watering can that waits by the seedlings. Almost time to get up. I lie still in the dark landscape of gathering consciousness. What kind of day will this be? My life appears to me in fragmentary bits barely visible through the fog. I scan the various images as they arrive—like an explorer receiving news from the various advance teams that have been sent out to scout the different directions of surrounding wilderness. There’s the pile of dirt in the garden that I’m calling a sculpture, the plants that need to be moved or repotted or planted, the notices that need to be written, the appointments to keep, the growing disarray of my room, the wondering what’s left to write about for this morning’s post.
I’m not a particularly organized person. I like to keep a larger sense of the direction I’m heading and then allow myself to be free to take up whatever strikes me in the moment. In general, this works pretty well for me, but occasionally I wake up to realize I’ve gotten in over my head and then my neural circuits begin quavering and flashing warning signs. Like now.
I like to think I’m reliable; someone you can count on. Once I take something on, I find a way to get it done. This morning I’m having serious doubts about myself. Am I really the person who I think I am? And, more than that, do I even want to be who I think I am?
Perhaps I should strive to be more irresponsible. I could continue to make lots of happy promises, but I would do my best to follow through only on a few. People would then talk about me: ‘He used to be so reliable. I wonder what happened?’ or ‘He’s aged quite a lot these past few years. He’s not as sharp as he used to be.’
In my dream, I ignore all the opinions and wander through my garden. My dirt pile grows very big as do the pile of emails in my inbox. I periodically scan through, but only occasionally reply. I’m not very available. My dirt pile grows lush with sweet woodruff and hay scented ferns. A bleeding heart showers it’s delicate red flowers exactly on the top. The world eventually forgets about me and I forget about myself.
But this morning, the wind blows strong and the moon slowly moves across the sky. Now, through the window it shines brightly through the branches of the katsura trees in the Temple garden as the sky turns from black to deep blue. I won’t write this morning about Jesus dying on the cross and how we all have to die as well. I won’t talk about how his despair on the cross is good news as it allows our despair to be included too.
I’ll just keep wandering in hopes that I’m already included in a plan grander than anything I could concoct.
Morning Adventure/Entertainment/Necessity
- At April 09, 2020
- By drynick
- In Reflections
- 0
We went food shopping yesterday. Usually that’s not such a big deal, but these days, it was a major production. We could have held out a little longer, but we were running out of some staples like bread and mayonnaise. We found ourselves with some unexpectedly free time, so we decided to make a run for it.
Our first choice was Trader Joe’s or Shaw’s. The natural food boutique or the big supermarket? We decided on Trader Joe’s because they stock a number of the frozen entrees that we rely on when we want something quick and simple. These items are the descendent of frozen TV dinners of the fifties that used to come in aluminum trays that carefully divided the peas from the mashed potatoes. I know this for sure because we often end up eating them in front of the TV—sitting side-by-side on the couch, watching one of our favorite shows on Netflix or Hulu or Prime.
Then we got our gear together – a scarf and a bandana for improvised face masks, disposable plastic gloves and no bags since the reusable bags that we have so carefully trained ourselves to use are no longer usable. (After we returned from the store, we got two lovely homemade face masks in the mail from a dear friend and then four more disposable face masks from another friend in our community.)
We also chose Trader Joe’s because we had heard they were careful about only letting a certain number of people in the store at one time to enhance the possibility of maintaining a six-foot distance while shopping. Sure enough, when we arrived there at 9:15 there was a line of people waiting to get in. And it was a correctly social distanced line that extended around the side of the building – marked with lines of tape every six feet.
We put up our scarves, donned our gloves and dutifully went to the back of the line. Waiting in line was kind of exciting. It brought back airport memories—as if we were waiting in line to go somewhere amazing. As we got closer to the front of the line we could see people shopping and checking out in the store. We realized we were going someplace amazing!
A place where they have all manner of delicious food on the shelves—where you put whatever you want into a large rolling container and then get to take it home with you. They even check every item on their scanner and put it all in double brown paper bags for you. The only thing they ask for in return is a particular kind of plastic card they want for a moment, but other than that, they just give you the stuff.
Shopping itself was, however, a little harrowing for me. Though the shelves were filled to the brim, I was uneasy. How do I make sure we get enough so we don’t have to return and expose ourselves again for several weeks? I did my best not to adjust the handkerchief I had worn over my nose and mouth but it was nearly impossible. I tried to stay away from other shoppers. Many were wearing mask, but some were not. Though there were just twenty-five shoppers in the store and perhaps fifteen workers, odds were good that at least one of us already had the corona virus and didn’t yet know it. In fact, I would guess that at least several, perhaps a dozen or more of us were already carrying this virus that has turned our daily routines upside down. How to stay safe from this invisible danger?
I was happy when we wheeled our loaded shopping cart up to the cashier, then waited behind the taped line as she unloaded, scanned and bagged our carefully chosen haul. We then wheeled the bags out in two shopping carts and returned to the safe confines of our home. We wiped most things down as we unpacked and left the bags themselves to self-sanitize overnight.
I am grateful to the farmers and the pickers and the truck drivers and the store workers who continue to do their jobs—who continue to expose themselves to viral risk every day. These usually unseen friends support our health and our lives. They are the foundation of all we do. May they all be safe and protected through this time of danger.
Follow David!