The Answer Isn’t So Simple
- At March 28, 2021
- By drynick
- In Reflections
0
Precisely at five a.m. this morning, the birds begin to sing. Lying in the dark I hear them clearly though the windows are shut. I smile as I remember other mornings of other springs and I wonder what is on my mind this spring morning. It seems a simple inquiry, but it always takes me a while to come up with an answer beyond, ‘Not very much’. Fog and murkiness are a regular feature of my life.
I have a close friend who is irritated when they ask me a question and my response is silence. I try to explain that my quietness is actually a good-faith attempt to find an answer rather than an evasion or a dismissal. I love the British TV shows where the leading characters always say they are fine even when the suspected murderer has just held them hostage, blindfolded and tied to a chair for four days without food and water. A hoarse and weary, ‘I’m fine,’ accompanied by a faint smile is always their response to the question ‘How are you doing?’
Their thoroughly British friend immediately decodes the nuance of the answer, taking into account their recent near-death experience and noticing the trembling of the upper lip and the red-rimmed eyes. The good friend does not disagree with the statement that is clearly false, but rather offers a cup of tea and responds directly to the human truth of the situation as opposed to the verbal construction.
The fullness of any situation is far beyond whatever words we say. I used to think it was important to ‘talk things out’ and ‘get to the bottom’ of issues. I still believe in the power and necessity of words to help us go beyond our limited perspectives, but being close and being in relationship now appears to be a more mysterious and imprecise adventure than I had thought.
So I ask myself again, ‘How is it with you this morning?’ I now accept my slow response as information. All night I have been dreaming, both asleep and awake, of the satisfying solidity of the rectangular granite blocks I was working with yesterday. The terrace walls I am constructing to contain a new garden linger sweetly in my mind with their comforting repetition and variation of simple shape and muted color. Each roughly rectangular stone weighs between five to twenty pounds and I remember the satisfying thud each one makes as I drop it on the bare earth when I move it from place to place.
I once read that in making a wall, you should never pick up a stone twice. This may work for other longer walls with more skilled wall-makers, but I seem to be doing a lot of moving of rocks that don’t yet find their place in the wall. So I try to enjoy each stone I pick up as well as appreciate the warmth of the afternoon sun on my shoulders. I move granite blocks from place to place, finding the precise length and height and width for the next piece of wall. I am delighted by the heft and ancient provenance of these sparkling gray companions.
I make some neighborly ‘beautiful-afternoon-to-be-outside’ talk with a visitor in my neighbor’s backyard and he responds by telling me these granite blocks are cobblestones. That hadn’t occurred to me, but it seems likely enough. He claims to work for the largest distributor of these stones in New England and tells me they are imported from India where they have been cut by hand. With so much granite here in New England, I secretly hope this is not true. I don’t like the idea of their carbon footprint being so much larger than the stones themselves. But since I am repurposing them from former uses around the property, I am somewhat soothed.
Now I notice that I have successfully evaded my own question. Or perhaps the true answer to how I am this morning is: ‘Dreaming of the solidity of granite blocks.’ This morning they appear as the kindly mooring of my soul—a life-line to keep me happily tethered to this earthy world of dirt and rocks, of flowers and trees, of bird-songs and mental images. Each thing itself goes beyond murkiness and words to present the fullness of life as just this.
Only Two (or more) Right Ways
- At March 27, 2021
- By drynick
- In Reflections
- 0
I started building a small terraced garden yesterday behind the south-side wall of the garage where I am starting to live. The ground slopes down gradually from east to west, about five feet over the twenty-foot run, but the siding on the wall steps down (and up) in three increments. I thought about just outlining a sloping garden there but then had the bright idea that it would look better to make some terraces that would repeat the steps of the siding (and hide more of the concrete).
When I begin a project, I rarely have a clear picture in mind of where I am going to end up. I used to envy people who seemed to know exactly what they are doing and where they are going. But then I realized that 1) most people actually don’t know what they are doing, even if they speak and act with great confidence, and 2) even the people who do know can end up quite wrong. I’ve had genuine experts offer various and contradictory opinions about the same problem.
When I studied Aikido, a Japanese martial art of self-defense, there were two Aikido Masters who taught the simplest and most basic move in diametrically opposed ways. The move, called tenkan, is a simple pivot and is usually practiced with the uke (attacker) grabbing the wrist of the nage (thrower) which is extended with the foot of the same side. (e.g. right hand and right foot forward) The nage then pivots on their front foot until they are side-by-side with the uke, all the time keeping their hand in front of their torso.
This simple move changes the relationship from face-to-face conflict to side-by-side collaboration, and if, as nage, you’ve kept your hand in front of your center, the uke is off-balance and you can easily extend forward and ‘throw’ your partner. (DISCLAIMER – do not try this with your partner at home as they may not be amused.) As an aspiring Aikido student, you do this over and over until your wrists get sore from the friction of being grabbed and then breaking free.
The disagreement between these two teachers was that one thought this simple move should be done with concentrated energy. He taught that, in doing this move, you should imagine energy flowing through your arm and out your fingers, extending this energy throughout the move. The other teacher taught that the key is looseness. He said not to focus on the hand but to keep everything in alignment during the move and allow the whole body to be relaxed and in a state of enjoyment.
Who was right? Each teacher was aware of and rather dismissive of the other’s position. Each would demonstrate the move in the ‘correct’ manner, then have a student try the other teacher’s method, which, of course, wouldn’t work at all. Physical reality seemed to shift depending on the views and teaching of the teacher.
At first, I was troubled by two masters directly disagreeing with each other and teaching contradictory techniques. But over the years, I have come to appreciate the creative and fungible aspect of reality. Not just Aikido Masters, but each of us participates in creating the world that in which we live. Our beliefs, assumptions, experiences, perceptions, thoughts, and actions all swirl together with everything we encounter to create what we call our ‘life’. It is (and we are) not a thing that can ever be fully described or understood. Any technique or teaching is only a provisional suggestion that may or may not apply to the current situation. You and I are ongoing processes that are constantly coming into being, maintaining, and falling away. Whatever worked yesterday may or may not work today.
But back to my intended terraced garden behind the garage. It’s 20% done and I’m now at the head-scratching place—stepping back considering proportions, available materials, and the myriad necessary decisions that were hidden from me in the vagueness of my good idea. I’m still hopeful that I can learn enough and be responsive as I go to create a simple terraced garden that rests easy with the garage wall behind it and brings a small portion of delight to me and others who may wander by.
The Peepers Call Out
- At March 26, 2021
- By drynick
- In Reflections
- 0
Yesterday’s warm drizzle spread quietly into the sleeping earth and roused the cold blood of us all, including the tiny amphibians, the peeper frogs, who suddenly came alive and began singing for their lives. From puddles and vernal pools throughout the neighborhood, the males began their shrill chirping and whistling–enacting the ancient call of life for attention and sex.
I suppose the little frogs have no awareness of their purpose. The male frog does not think ‘I’ll call out especially fast and loud to attract a really hot babe so we can have sex and have a nice family of eight or nine hundred little ones who will be so cute and fun to play with.’ He calls out because he calls out. In his pure expression, there is no gap between intention and action. The calling, as well as the subsequent conjugal activity, serves life’s essential purpose that is unknown to the one who calls out.
On some level, for all our painful human self-consciousness, each one of us too lives by instinct and acts without knowledge. Current research shows that our awareness lags several milliseconds behind our actions. Like the little peepers, we act first, before we even know we have decided. It is then, a fraction later, that the thinking mind comes online and scrambles to figure out a ‘reason’ why I ‘decided’ to do that which I have already done.
Aside from the vast majority of our ‘thinking’ which happily trundles on beneath the level of our consciousness and beats our heart and breathes our breath and constantly maintains our precarious constantly moving exchange with the world we live in—aside from all this, most of our thinking is post hoc—it comes after the fact of our activity. Our thinking is simply our best guess as to why a certain feeling is arising or why I said or did what I just said or did. Its assertion of agency and authority is an elaborate (and often quite convincing) charade.
Mostly we’re like the eight-year-old boy who trips and falls, then quickly leaps up and looks around to see if anyone was watching. And if they were, he defiantly proclaims ‘I meant to do that.’ The ancient delusive claim of purpose and control. Though I spend a lot of time encouraging people to clarify their purpose and to act in alignment with whatever that deeper direction may be, in the end, I find life to be much more mysterious (and interesting) than that.
Our lives unfold through each action we take or don’t take. I have no idea why one day I get out and go for the brisk walk that I know is good for me and the next day hardly get out of the house. Why I have continued to meditate and lead Zen groups for the past thirty years is also a mystery to me. I can, of course, make up a thousand reasons and some of them feel true, but really, my life is simply what I have done.
I’m not advocating we let libido run wild and imitate the licentious behavior of this season’s cacophonous vernal pools. But maybe I am. Maybe I mean to say that we can appreciate the ten thousand joys and sorrows of our lives as part of a bigger movement of life, as not quite so personal and therefore not quite so fraught with regret and anxiety. Maybe we are not as separate as we think and we are all simply calling and responding to the ancient necessities of attention and reproduction. In that case, I’ll just follow what calls to me and sing as quickly and as loudly as I can and hope for the best.
(Excerpted from forthcoming book Wandering Close to Home: A Year of Zen Reflections, Consolations, and Reveries. September 1, 2024.)
On Being Related
- At March 25, 2021
- By drynick
- In Reflections
- 0
The birds sing enthusiastically in this morning’s drizzle though the skies are still dark. My laptop opened to an op-ed piece in the NY Times by a Korean-American woman, Mihee Kim-Kort, who is a Presbyterian minister, theologian pondering motives for the shooting of eight in Atlanta last week.
Rev Kim-Kort begins the piece by referring to the Korean practice of using filial names rather than given names. As the oldest in the family, her parents referred to each other as “mi-omma” (“Mihee’s mother”) and “mi-appa” (“Mihee’s father”) after her birth. Before Rev. Kim-Kort knew their names, she thought of the Korean women killed in the shootings as Daughter, Big Sister, Mother, and Aunt. Rev. Kim-Kort suggests that this custom of relational labeling reflects the Korean understanding that we are inseparable from who we love and who we are loved by.
All of us are sons and daughters—murderers and victims alike. Many of us have brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles. We may have sons and daughters and non-binary children ourselves. We may still live with or near our parents and grandparents or they may no longer or may never have been part of our lives. But we are all related.
Family is a blessing and a struggle. In close families, we may have to fight for enough space to feel that we can be seen for who we really are. In a distant family, each member can feel alone and cut off. Yet our relationships and the issues of our family of origin are with us through our lives. What we learned, how we were treated, what was acknowledged, what was hidden—all this stays with us as the great source and the great challenge of our lives.
Acknowledging and appreciating our connection to each other begins with understanding our connection with the particular gifts and burdens of our familial heritage. None of us are independently appearing individuals that get to create ourselves ex-nihilo. We are all wired through our biology and through our upbringing to see certain things and not others. Studies show that our capacities to distinguish one face from another is directly related to the faces we see in our world in the first years of our lives. To individuals who have never seen ‘white’ faces as children, their capacity to distinguish one from another is physiologically limited.
The issues of our family come down through us and are our opportunity to make a difference. Each successive generation works the rich soil of confusion and clarity that has been passed on. To work with the legacy of our ancestors requires humility and determination because these inherited forces are both subtle and fierce. Going beyond simply enacting the beliefs and blindnesses of our ancestors requires intention and effort over time.
Rev. Kim-Kort goes on to say that the Atlanta killer was responding to a toxic brew of anti-Asian and anti-woman prejudice as well as to the ‘purity culture’ of conservative white Christian teachings—what she calls ‘toxic theology’ that leads to an ‘extreme fear of God and an equally extreme self-loathing.’ Another perspective is that the Atlanta killer was just a disturbed human being with mental illness. Perhaps the correct answer can only be ‘all of the above.’
But the birds sing undaunted and the morning light gives brings shape and color to the world outside my window. My eyes see and my ears hear. We are all related—to each other and to the calling birds and to the rain that falls this morning to bless and nourish the flowers. Let us not forget.
Going Beyond Limitations
- At March 24, 2021
- By drynick
- In Reflections
- 0
I have a bad memory for names and I don’t do much better with faces. This is why I never became a politician. It hasn’t been a terrible liability, but it is a hindrance in my spring project of getting to know the neighbors.
I already know some of them and have been conversing casually with some for a number of years. The thing is, I don’t know some of their names. I asked them so long ago and have had so many brief conversations that I am now afraid to ask again for fear of offending them. But I’m actually not afraid of offending them, I’m afraid of looking stupid or like I don’t care. It’s very important for me to appear to others as a person who cares.
I suppose I learned from my parents: #1—the most important thing in the world is to care about other people. If you don’t care about other people, you’re selfish, mean-spirited, and not worth very much. The corollary of this is #2—the worst thing others can think of you is that you don’t care about them. And the hidden assumption from which #2 arises is #3—your worth as a person is directly linked to what other people think of you.
This all leads, in a way that makes perfect sense until you think about it in more detail, to a life of spending a lot of time trying to look good. ‘Trying to look good’ sounds pretty selfish and mean-spirited when I put it so bluntly, and I would generally and passionately deny its truth, except that I realize it’s getting in my way of getting to know my neighbors.
My other hurdle is that I’m an introvert by nature. In spite of my wild self-revelations in these small reflections, I don’t generally feel a need that others know how I am feeling or what I am thinking. Not everyone who practices Zen is an introvert, but sitting long hours in silent contemplation is clearly a practice that appeals more to some than to others. One of our standard jokes at the beginning of a Zen retreat is that this is a ‘party for introverts.’ We get to be in close proximity with others without having to talk and make polite conversation.
But my vow is to do my part to heal our divided country by making connections to the people around me. I have the advantage of living in a fairly mixed neighborhood in terms of race and national origin. And, due to my natural reticence and fear of looking bad or causing trouble, I have no idea how most of my neighbors voted in the past election—or the shape of their lives—or the issues that mean the most to them.
So yesterday, I asked the guy who often has the boats in his driveway and who I have spoken with several dozen times, I asked him to remind me of his name as I introduced myself. He said ‘I know who you are, you live up the street and do meditation. I haven’t forgotten.’ I took his implied criticism and repeated his name silently to myself over and over after he said it. Was it Dick? or Richard? or something else? I can’t quite remember.
It’s a shaky start, but a start none-the-less. Note to self: learn how to use cell phone to record all new names within thirty seconds of hearing them.
Follow David!