Searching For Clues

About a year ago, for some reason, I decided that I should write another book. I spent a number of months just mulling over the idea and considering what it might be about and feeling slightly guilty about not starting. Then the pandemic hit and I began writing these daily reflections. I now suspect that the book is hidden somewhere within what I’ve already written.

Sister Helen Prejean (Dead Man Walking) once said in a radio interview: ‘I’m always watching what I do to see what I believe.’ We can believe whatever we want and we can say whatever we want; but our actions reveal some deeper allegiance that is often unknown to our conscious minds.

One of the main directions of my life is to be fully present—to close the gap between myself and myself. I want to live an undivided life. When I trim my finger nails I want to be at one with myself. The temptation and the ancient pattern is to split so that there is one doing the trimming and one observing and commenting on the one who is doing the trimming. This habitual gap between ourselves and ourselves, is a painful one–often filled with judgments, opinions, self-consciousness and other less than pleasant experiences. These troublesome thoughts pose as helpers to make sure we do a good job, but mostly make it harder for us by distracting us from the task at hand. With their help, trimming my nails becomes an exercise in making sure I am good enough rather than a practice of self-care.

Sister Helen is not talking about this kind of watching. She’s talking about stepping back and being curious about larger patterns. It’s not about being good enough, it’s about noticing what is true. Do my actions align with my words? The Martian test is another way to approach this same endeavor. It goes like this: A Martian lands on the earth today and has to learn about you without understanding a word of what you say. He can only watch you go about your day. What would she learn from watching how you spend your time?

The point of this exercise is not to find out that we should exercise more, spend less time in front of screens, and eat better. Most of us already know this and it does little to help us—it just creates an invisible drag of guilt that is one more thing we carry around as we move through our day.

In order to learn something useful, we must look with genuine curiosity and kindness. While some of us can fairly easily muster this interest and compassion for others, it can be more challenging when we turn towards ourselves. Judgments and feelings of inadequacy so easily overwhelm our attempts at knowing more about ourselves.

The Martian perspective can help. She watches without judgment or prejudice. He observes just to see what is so. How do you spend your energy and time? Over the course of the day, what do you give your attention to? What do the patterns of your daily life say about the deeper values that animate you? What would the Martian learn about you from just watching?

So I’ve gone back and read through what I’ve written to see if I can find the book. I’ve gotten through March, April and May and I’m mostly pleased with what I read. Having written the pieces so long ago, it’s as if they were written by someone else. I’m reading for themes and to sense what kind of organization might hold some of these writings together in a book that would interest a reader (someone who would want to put this book on their bedside table) and a publisher (who would think there might be a market for another book by an obscure Zen teacher).

There’s a wonderful love of the garden and the natural world. Internal observations about the movement of my mind weave in with comments about the pandemic and politics. I like the shorter length of the pieces. They don’t really follow one from the next, so I don’t have to remember or follow any larger developing argument. I often smile at what I’ve written. Even in reading so many at a time, I feel invited into a slower and more intimate world. This seems important.

I try not to get overwhelmed by my doubts and judgments so that I can allow the deeper patterns to reveal themselves. Can I let the material organize itself as I try to do with each of these reflections I offer? Can I practice the kind of trust in the unfolding of the moment that I often write about?

I’m reminded of Peter Block’s wonderful book with the wonderful title: The Answer to How is Yes. Let me close with a list of questions he puts under the heading YES IS THE RIGHT QUESTION:

What refusal have I been postponing?
What commitment am I willing to make?
What is the price I am willing to pay?
What is the crossroad at which I find myself at this point in my life/work?
What is the question that, if I had the answer, would set me free?