Paradoxical Comfort

Yesterday, I ended my reflection with the following question: “What is it that we might touch, that we might remember that will sustain us even as we walk though the valley of these days?” There are a thousand answers to that question. Or perhaps just a thousand forms of the one ungraspable answer.

A Zen colleague recently sent me the following paradoxical answer: a rendition of the beginning of the book of Ecclesiastes by Rabbi Rami Shapiro from his book THE WAY OF SOLOMON.

Emptiness! Emptiness upon emptiness!
The world is fleeting of form,
empty of permanence,
void of surety,
without certainty.
Like a breath breathed once and gone,
all things rise and fall.
Understand emptiness, and tranquility replaces anxiety.
Understand emptiness, and compassion replaces jealousy.
Understand emptiness, and you will cease to excuse suffering
and begin to alleviate it.

I first came upon the harsh and comforting book of Ecclesiastes when I was a sophomore in college. It was a difficult year for me as I struggled to make the transition from youth to adulthood and to chart some path that had meaning for me. In the midst of confusion and pain that spring, I met with one of my religion professors and poured my heart out to him. He listened without saying too much then he went to his bookshelf and pulled out his well worn bible. He began reading about a time for planting and a time for reaping; a time for living and a time for dying; a time for rejoicing and a time for sorrow. I was strangely comforted.

In Rabbi Shapiro’s rendition, King Solomon’s words become even wilder. Encouraging us to find our grounding not in the permanence of things, but to rest in the inconvenient yet inescapable fact that nothing is permanent. What is this emptiness that he sings of? Empty of permanence / void of surety / without certainty. From one perspective this leaves us tumbling through an ever shifting space with no point of orientation.

Yet when we look closely, we ourselves realize this truth that the Buddha expressed in his final words: ‘Everything falls apart. Proceed with love.’

We spend much of our time trying to hold things together—trying to fix thing—trying to make sure things come out our way. You may have noticed that this is ultimately a futile exercise. We cannot hold onto the people or circumstances we love. Children grow up and move away. All of us, if we’re lucky, grow old and die.

When we see that everything is arising and passing away, we can begin to get out of the control business and make our home right in the middle of this beautiful and impermanent world. Understand emptiness, and tranquility replaces anxiety.

May we today realize the truth of coming and going, the truth of no permanence and no certainty. That we might be free to appreciate each moment as this mysterious life as it constantly appears—now in the form of this, now in the form of that.