Wondering About the Possibilities

April fourth. Easter Sunday, 2021. The heating pipes bang repeatedly as the steam rushes to the noisy radiator in the back of the house. About one minute of hammering, then it’s just the pleasant rumble of a gas boiler below and the hissing of steam up here. I’m layered up though it’s already almost sixty where I am in the front living room. A blanket over my legs, a down vest and my trusty winter watch cap and I’m quite cozy.

My wife and I are settling into our new home here while we shuttle back and forth the quarter-mile from our old home, the Temple. The preponderance of nights are now spent here which means that the geography of my morning writing has altered as well.

When we first looked at this small arts-and-crafts bungalow nearly six years ago, we were both struck by how unique and well laid out it was. A small house with wonderful windows and a feeling of space. A large fieldstone fireplace greets you as you come in off the front porch with its picturesque angular columns. This front room is the heart of the house—a spacious room that runs the width of the building. Large square windows take up most of the wall space on either side of the central front door, two windows look out to the west and French doors between bookcases open the eastern wall to a modest porch, lawn and garden.

It all smelled like smoke when we came with the real estate agent. As an enthusiastic camper, that was fine with me, but was almost a deal-breaker for my wife. But what I remember most from that first visit is sitting on a couch in this very spot where I am now writing (to the right as you face the fireplace) and having a clear waking dream of sitting here with my laptop writing and looking out the very window I’m looking out right now. In that dream, I was writing poetry every afternoon with the sun pouring gently through the western windows.

The sun is not quite up yet, and this is not really a poem, but it’s all close enough to entice me wonder again about the causality of things and who is doing what to whom. I mean, is this moment of writing a manifestation of my dream or am I a realization of the dream of the house itself? Are the energies of this building and of this spot of the earth expressing themselves through me? (I can certainly vouch for the fact that though ideas come into my awareness and I tap them into the laptop, I have no clue where these ideas come from nor why one arises and not another—this earth spot and this building are as likely a source as any.)

Does the gardener coax the reluctant seeds to life or do the seeds somehow entice the gardeners to be their hands and feet? Enlisting willing humans is a wonderfully ingenious strategy to spread one’s seeds to wide and gentle geographies that may likely be conducive to the flourishing of the next generation. I imagine the committee that came up with this strategy: ‘No more relying on the birds and the bees to spread our seed, we’ll persuade these two-legged singing creatures to carefully collect us, put us in packets with our seductive blossoms on the front to attract other gardeners, sending us around the country and even sometimes starting us indoors to give us a head start on the season.’ I imagine the delight of the planning committee as they came upon this idea and then realized the best part of the scheme was that the two-legged creatures would most likely think that they themselves had decided to do this. A brilliant reproduction strategy. Inert seeds able to take full advantage of humans—their hands and feet and their latest technology—to enhance the chances of survival of the next generation.

So is buying and eventually moving into this house and sitting here on the couch looking out the window as the radiator rattles and writing—is this me manifesting my dream? Or is my presence tapping out these words while occasionally glancing out the eastern French doors to a brave pot of petunias sitting on the railing of the porch, is my presence part of the dream of the house? Perhaps the fieldstone fireplace is an antenna receiving the angelic voices of the universe and making them available for me to express as I catch fragments of their celestial words and tunes.

Of course, I don’t really believe any of this. But on this day where some significant percentage of the world is celebrating that someone who was three days dead, twenty-one hundred years ago, rose up and walked again…I do wonder about the possibilities.

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

Nothing Inspiring

Foggy brain morning. How to make my home here?

Nothing inspiring or unusual. Same old, same old. The cold weather has me discouraged again. Nothing here but a slight headache and the hum of the refrigerator and the insistent birdcall that comes through the windows.

It’s Saturday of Easter weekend. In the story, He’s still in the darkness of the tomb. Taken down lifeless from the brutal cross and laid out. The Christians are mourning, and the authorities are relieved. What a story to guide a civilization! A story of a peace that passes understanding followed by a senseless death at the hands of the authorities (I thirst.) And then, they say, and they’re already getting ready to celebrate, there is the rising up from the dead. On the third day. Really? Did any of this actually happen then? Or is this still, like all stories, about something that is happening now? (I can’t breathe.)

I read a lovely Ryokan poem in a Dharma talk the other night and a student responded by sharing a matching parable from the Bible about a man who discovered a pearl of great price buried in a field and went and sold everything he had to buy that field. No, no…he joyfully sold everything he had to buy that field.

Where is this field and what is the pearl that could cause such joyful generosity? (For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son…) The pearl of incomparable value is the essence of this life of ten thousand joys and sorrows. Where is it now? How could it be here even in this morning’s dull discouragement?

Hakuin Zenji says: ‘Why do people ignore the near and seek truth afar? Like someone in the midst of water crying out in thirst.’ And Jesus chimes in: ‘The Kingdom of God is within.’ (But it will cost you everything you own and you will joyfully pay.)

Wasn’t yesterday’s reflection something about hanging around long enough to appreciate what is already here? Might that apply to even this?

This quiet morning. The cold sun of early spring illuminates the eastern side of the leafless tree across the street. I slouch easily on the couch in mild discomfort. The street outside is empty. Everything waits here.

Instructions for Wanderers

The point is to try to hang around long enough
in any one particular place to sense what is actually happening.

(Unless we go beyond our opinion,
we cannot receive what is already here.

Without intention, our determined illusion of isolation
separates us from our true kinship with all things.)

Three hanging around skills to test out:
• slow down,
• have no useful purpose,
• be surprised with what you find.

But don’t worry—even without summoning some clear intention and before every employing clever tricks, you have never, not even for one second, been separated from the fulsome love of the universe that holds, sustains, and delights in you.

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

Exploring the Gap

The other day, I wrote about education being about relationship rather than curriculum. Another way to talk about this is to use the conceptual tools of overt curriculum and hidden curriculum. The stated curriculum is the course content: the subject matter, the syllabus, and the facts and theories that the teacher expects the students to learn. The hidden curriculum points to the human learnings and assumptions that are conveyed in how the course is structured and taught, how the interactions between student and teacher take place, and everything else that happens in the class.

The hidden curriculum overwhelms the stated curriculum every day. One of our local luminaries, R.W. Emerson, put it this way: ‘What you are doing speaks so loud, I can’t hear a word you are saying.’ I can say that I expect everyone in my classroom to act with respect, but if I make arbitrary rules, treat individuals by different standards and don’t really listen, then that message is what communicates most directly.

In organizations, we can talk about the gap between mission statements and operations or between organizational policy and organizational culture. There is who we say we are and then there is the reality of who we are in our actions. One insightful commentator, when considering our attempts to re-envision and reform policing warned; ‘Culture eats policy for breakfast every morning.’ They meant that we can pass enlightened and transformative policies, but if the culture of the police (or any organization) does not change, very little will be different.

(Or ‘Change must come from within.’ which is what the New York City hotdog vendor reportedly said to the Dalai Lama when the Dalai Lama asked for change from a ten-dollar bill he gave the vendor when Dalai Lama asked: ‘Make me one with everything.’ )

This gap between espoused values and lived values is true in our personal lives as well. We often state clear and reasonable intentions and then are surprised that we are not able to follow through. I believe it’s very important for me to get regular vigorous exercise. I say this with what feels like full conviction. But if I look at my life, I see that this does not really appear to be true.

It turns out that it is extremely difficult to close the gap between what we intend and what we live. Author and activist Sister Helen Prejean said ‘I always watch what I do to see what I really believe.’  We say we are against racism and prejudice of any kind, but in a culture where we find racism embedded in the structures of the institutions that support our lives (like the police), do our actions really reflect what we feel in our hearts?

Thinking back to my experience in school, ostensibly, the learning was about math, history, English and the other subjects. But I knew that what was most important was obedience and conforming to teachers’ expectations. I was not consciously aware of this at the time, but I made sure to behave (mostly) and instinctively knew that being a ‘good boy’ was more important than learning.

Over the years, when I have been a guest lecturer on Zen and meditation at highly selective colleges around the area, I have found that many of the students (who did well in high school and on standardized tests) behaved like me. While I wanted them to look into their own experience and engage with the moment, they were carefully hiding themselves while trying to learn what I (and their teacher) expected them to learn. The hidden curriculum teaches habits that grow deep and usually operate beneath the level of our awareness.

I wonder too about the hidden teachings of the online learning that so many of our children have just been through. I know that some students were allowed to have their cameras on or off during classes to protect their privacy. One of the unintended learnings of this might be ‘I don’t really make a difference. I can have my camera off or on, no one knows (or cares) what I think, feel, or wonder.’ I’m sure this was not what any teacher intended, but just the structure of on-line learning might make this a likely and unfortunate outcome.

So how do we close the gap between what we say and what we do?

One way, as Sister Helen Prejean suggests, is to pay more attention to our actions than to our words. If someone watched your life for several days without being able to hear any of your words, what assumptions would they make about what is most important to you—about what you really believe? Does how you actually spend your time reflect what you care about most deeply?

Another entry point might be to pay attention to the attitude with which you do the little things. It’s not just the task itself (overt curriculum) that matters, but the care and presence we bring to it as we engage with it.

Another of our locals, H.D.Thoreau, put it this way: Why, then, should man hasten as if anything less than eternity were allotted for the least deed? Let him consume never so many aeons, so that he goes about the meanest task well, though it be but the paring of his nails.

So get the nail clipper out and have at it!

Not Multiple-Choice

Fortunately, this morning, all I have is a sore arm.

I got my second vaccine dose yesterday afternoon. After a negative COVID test in the morning, taken in precaution due to a slight fever, chills, and exhaustion of the evening before, I got better as the day went on, and, at the doctor’s recommendation, followed through with my 3:15 appointment at the CVS in Sturbridge, MA. I seem to have had my primary reaction prior to the second shot rather than after.

I wonder if this was some mystical heightened sensitivity, anxiety, or something else altogether? I love how the mind wants to know. We want a clear reason for everything that happens, so we create a list of possible culprits and then interrogate the whole gang, certain that one of the suspects must be guilty. But rather than singular and simple, the ‘answer’ is just as likely to be ‘all of the above’ or ‘some of the above’ or ‘none of the above.’

One of the tricks I learned that allowed me to do well in school (and on standardized testing), was that the likeliest answer provided was probably the one they were looking for. Beneath this conscious knowledge which allowed me to eliminate the answers it couldn’t be and then guess between what was left, thereby greatly improving my chances, was my unconscious awareness that tests are never about ‘the truth’ but rather about the expectation of the person designing the test. Doing well in school was not a matter of learning about the world or myself, but rather having a clear understanding of what each particular teacher wanted.

Since then, I’ve come to realize how relational education is in another way as well. The relationship between the student and the teacher is equally and perhaps more important than the content that is covered. Most all my teacher friends know this and have been struggling to maintain these relationships on-line over this past year. Real learning is not about memorizing facts (though I am a great believer in memorizing poems which I believe have a salutary effect on one’s general well-being and sense of appreciation of life). Real learning is allowing oneself to go beyond the security of one’s opinion into the unexplored and unsettling world that is just beyond. And venturing beyond what we know entails danger and loss.

We rarely talk about the personal costs of learning. In the mid-’90s Robert Evans wrote a wonderful book called The Human Side of School Change: Reform, Resistance, and the Real-Life Problems of Innovation in which he looked at the many factors in play when we are trying to create or encourage or even allow change. He writes specifically about educational organizations, but I think his insights apply equally to our internal efforts as well.

…the key factor in change is what it means to those who must implement it, and that its primary meanings encourage resistance: it provokes loss, challenges competence, creates confusion, and causes conflict.

I have long loved Evans’ writing about the often unspoken costs of change. His reflections seem equally true for learning as well. In learning, we lose the worldview that we had and therefore our sense of competence as an actor in that world. We are confused because the old rules and perspectives we had relied on are no longer applicable and this causes conflict as we work out new relationships and patterns of interaction.

Relationships and support from real people who can walk with us and reassure us as the world shape-shifts in our minds and around us are essential ingredients in learning and growth. Our job as parents and grandparents and friends of young people is not to tell them what we think they need to know, but to walk with them as they discover and rediscover the world around them. I suppose this equally applies to all the other human beings we encounter.

We can never know what someone else ‘needs’ to know. But we can be curious and supportive as they go through their many learnings. We can push back and challenge sometimes, but always with respect for the mysterious process of life unfolding in the form of each particular person. Life is not a multiple-choice test and my ‘answer’ is only one possible choice among the many that are allowed, encouraged, and celebrated by this vast and creative universe.