The Trouble We’re In

Buddhist thinker and eco-activist David Loy writes persuasively in his book Ecodharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis about the need for new ways of thinking about what we’re doing here on this planet. He points out, as many others have, that what is required is not simply for us all to take slightly shorter showers and ask for paper bags instead of plastic at the grocery store but rather a fundamental shift in the stories we collectively tell about the meaning of life and about our relationship to each other, this fragile planet, and the cosmos itself.

Loy quotes Loyal Rue who observed that the Axial Age religions (which include Buddhism, Vedanta, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam) all emphasize cosmological dualism and individual salvation. Cosmological dualism refers to the belief that there is another higher or better world someplace else. Embedded in the notion of a heaven where we go if we fulfill certain requirements here on earth, it places God above and earth below. Some traditional Buddhist teachings explicitly say that the point of life is to go beyond life in escaping the world of birth and death. Even the Mahayana (Zen) notions of enlightenment can be interpreted as transcending worldly concerns to live in a world beyond this painful world of suffering.

Cosmological dualism is part of what has created the worldview where we forget that we fully enmeshed and dependent on the so-called inanimate things around us. From this place of separation we see the earth and even each other as merely a means to an end. Our attention is on getting to some better place rather than realizing that our non-separation requires us to include not only each other, but the trees and the earth and the water and the sky in our calculations of self-interest.

Individual salvation is the idea, that though we live in community, each of us works toward salvation (or awakening) on our own. We each, we are told, must work out our own salvation in fear and trembling. We each must do the individual work to cut through our delusion and wake up to life itself. Every man, woman and child for themselves.

These two core ideas do not, however, represent the fullness of any religious tradition. In Ecodharma Loy goes on to illuminate the teachings of Buddhist traditions that could be the basis for a realization of the oneness of the sacred and the profane (non-dual teachings) as well as the teachings that no one individual awakens until everyone awakens. I have Christian friends who are doing this same work within their tradition—seeking new interpretations that will allow us to use our faith traditions to energize us in meeting this unprecedented challenge of global ecological collapse.

I’m reminded of Marx’s remark that ‘Religion is the opiate of the masses.’ And certainly religion has been used to justify centuries of cruelty in our economic and social systems. Systems that are focused on maximizing profit with no thought of the human consequences nor the unaccounted for cost to the earth, water and sky on which we all depend. Good Christian ministers preached centuries of justification for slavery and unspeakable cruelty to those with brown and black skins. Not to mention Christianity’s muscular support for the accumulation of vast wealth and the exploitation of workers of all colors and ethnic backgrounds.

Donald Trump, though he doesn’t appear to be any kind of Christian except in photo-ops, is the perfect exemplar of this strain of impoverished radical individualism. Winning is everything. Money is all that counts. Laugh at the losers. Take what you can get. Protect what you have against all comers. Compassion, sacrifice and collaboration are for those who are not strong enough to defend their true and solitary interests.

I was, however, deeply heartened last week by the images and the rhetoric coming out of the Democratic National Convention. The idea of at least beginning from a place that stresses we are all in this together, that we need each other, that we have a responsibility to the earth that supports us is refreshing, to say the least.

In Ecodharma, Loy makes a clear and unhysterical case that our immanent environmental collapse is part of a larger way of thinking that is also manifested in the violence of racial injustice, economic oppression and rising rates of depression and drug use in almost every (over)developed country. To make the changes we need to avoid the potential annihilation of life as we know it, we must work at this level as well as every other available to us.

Now for the cheery and clever ending. Hmmmm…..

It’s a cool morning. The sky is blue and the sound of a nearby fan is loud. I breathe in and out. I take a sip of tea. I suppose to look into the social and environmental suffering that surrounds us, we have to make sure to come back again and again to the ongoing miracle that is who we are. We are, each one of us, fully embedded in the most astonishing fabric of stars and crickets—of whales and nasturtiums.

 

Don’t forget.

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On Creating the World We Live In

Many years ago I found a book on a bookshelf in the office of the Utne Reader in Minneapolis. I browsed through as I waited for my appointment and was so enchanted that I ordered a copy when I got home. A SIMPLER WAY, by Margaret Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers turned out to be one of those amazing books that changed the way I thought about the world.

Their major point is that Darwin’s image of a world of struggle and fight for survival is only one way to think about the activity of the world and our place in it. The authors suggest that the world is actually infinitely creative and seeks many solutions to the same problem. ‘Life is an experiment to discover what’s possible…We are here to create, not to defend.’ Instead of every creature pitted against every other creature, they point to the mutuality of an organism and its environment.

‘The environment is invented by our presence in it. We do not parachute into a sea of turbulence, to sink or swim. We and our environments become one system, each influencing the other, each co-determining the other. Geneticist R. C. Lweontin explains that environments are best thought of as sets of relationships organized by living beings. “Organisms do not experience environments. They create them.”

We are so used to living in a world of imagined objects that are competing with one another for scarce resources. But this very perspective creates the world it imagines. When we think that we are separate, we act in ways that validate and confirm that separation. As the great physicist and philosopher David Boehm once said ‘The mind creates the world and then says “I didn’t do it.” ’

The Buddha taught that the self and the world create each other. This teaching of dependent co-arising (pratityasamutpada) imagines a world of mutuality where everything creates and is created by everything else. Though we most often experience ourselves as independent actors living in an environment that we must contend with, in fact, we are constantly and actively participating in the creation of the very situation in which we find ourselves.

This is why most solutions that involve trying to get other people to change are ineffective. In fact, most of our attempts to fix things simply add to the problem or shift its location. Our very efforts to fix and change are manifestations of the same system and the same problem that we are trying to fix. The more energy we put into the struggle to change, the tighter we are held.

The bad news and the good news is that the ‘problems’ we encounter are not ‘out there.’ Though sometimes we must take action to prevent harm and to offer kindness, the root of conflict in the world is exactly us. World peace and justice and equity begins with each one of us. This is not merely a metaphor, but a powerful perspective on living a life of meaning and purpose.

Arny Mindell and Process Work talk about ‘inner work’ as a kind of ‘world work’. In Zen we say that when we sit in meditation, the whole universe sits with us. What we encounter in our experience is not just personal. The sadness, the anger, the anguish, the joy, the ease is part of the field of human experience. In opening ourselves to each moment, we allow ourselves to enact our intimate connection with every one and every thing.

From this place of opening to all that is here, we can find creative possibilities for meeting life in some new way. We can begin to stop waiting for others to change and begin to take responsibility for the quality of our lives and the quality of the world around us.

Personal Practice – Think of a problem you are currently dealing with. Notice how you frame the problem—what’s wrong and how you initially think it should be fixed. Then consider: What if your thoughts, words and actions are part of the source of this problem? What if this problem is not really a problem, but an invitation for you to live a freer and more authentic life? What if there is some important opportunity for you right in the middle of where you are currently stuck?

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Crabapples and Coronavirus

The crabapple trees have passed their peak here in the Temple garden. The extravagance of white blossoms is giving way to equally miraculous but more ordinary looking green leaves. Soon, their glory days will be behind them and they will hide through the summer as unremarkable trees of medium size.

Spring’s extravagant bloom passes to the slower work and pleasure of summer.

This late May morning, as the social constraints of the pandemic are beginning to loosen, I wonder if the bloom of Covid has come and gone? Experts disagree and politicians use scraps of information to construct a banquet of questionable projections. Yet each one of us has to make important decisions for ourselves and those we love.

Governors are allowing, state by state, the reopening of certain businesses and allowing the re-gathering of certain groups. Interestingly, beauty salons and churches are at the top of many of the lists. And we here at Boundless Way Temple are beginning to think about when it might be safe to gather again in person for Zen meditation. (Though some of us with very short hair remain unconcerned about visits to the barber.)

No one says the virus is gone. People are still coming down with the virus and people are still dying at an alarming rate. In some places, the rates infection, hospitalization and death are holding steady or diminishing. In others, rates are still rising. But it all depends on where you look and how you measure.

When is it safe to go out? When is it safe to come together? Is it now enough to have the windows open and masks on? The future course of the virus is still closely dependent on our individual and collective behaviors. Some of us are still sheltering in place. Some of us are having our close friends over for drinks and dinner.

A recent poll here in Massachusetts found that nearly 80% of respondents report that they are maintaining social distancing behaviors strictly. These same people also reported that only 25% of the people around them were doing the same. Both of these observations cannot be true at the same time. We humans are irreparably biased. The obvious truth of our observation is likely to wildly influenced by our hopes, histories and fantasies.

Yet we have to make our best choices. We should all be careful to read (and watch) widely and to check the inevitable biases of our sources. Being provisional in our pronouncements and being diligent in looking for new data will serve us well. It might also help us be more accurate in our speech and actions as well.

But the crabapple trees are not bothered by their fame or their obscurity. They stay firmly grounded in the season of the moment. Blossoms and birds come and go without regret as the nascent fruit of the unimaginable fall begins its slow swelling toward fullness.

Personal Practice – Be aware today of how your opinion is shaped as much by your previous opinions as it is by what you are encountering in the moment. Notice the emotions that arise unbidden when you consider certain people and situations. Don’t try to change anything, just see if you can perceive and appreciate whatever is arising in the infinite interplay between perception, thought and feeling.

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Sudden or Gradual?

One of the debates that has enlivened the Zen school for centuries is the debate between sudden enlightenment and gradual cultivation. The Rinzai school of Zen is famous for working with koans and for emphasizing the power of achieving a sudden flash of understanding that is called enlightenment. The Soto school is usually associated more closely with ‘just sitting’ and with the ongoing nature of practice. Rinzai practice traditionally focuses on the notion that there is something to accomplish, some realization to be had. While Soto practice maintains that we are already awake and that any effort we make to achieve something is based on our deluded thinking.

You can see what a delicious and endless argument this could be. Each side can easily stand in the fullness of their position and look down on those poor people with incorrect understanding and inferior practice. And, as you may have observed, we human beings sometimes save our harshest judgments for people who are closest. The feelings that arise between committed partners can swing quickly from great fondness to strong aversion. The criticism and judgments that appear between different branches of the same religion can be especially energized as well.

One great Zen master of 13th century Korea, Chinul, settled these seeming polarities in this way: sudden awakening leads to gradual cultivation. He maintained that enlightenment is not something you practice Zen to achieve, but rather that you would not begin a meditation practice like Zen unless you had had some kind of realization.

The Zen way asks that we take on the practice of sitting still and being present with what is here. Anyone who has tried this, even for ten minutes, has a sense of what difficult work this is. So much of what arises in the mind and so much of life is unpleasant. Why would anyone want to sit still and feel what is here? Better to be busy running around distracting yourself or trying to fix what is wrong.

Chinul maintained that those who are willing to try this arduous path have had some moment when they have seen through some of the illusions of daily life. These moments of seeing through can be very brief – just a moment of walking out into the coolness of a spring morning, or when a toddler runs toward you with delight and throws his arms around you with unreserved love and trust, or while sipping tea reading a book with a beloved pet curled up nearby. These are moments when the endless struggle of life drops away and we are touched by the fullness of life itself.

Every human being has moments like this, but often we are looking the other way. We are too busy to even notice these micro-joys that appear spontaneously. Some of these moments of intimacy with life are so strong we are stopped in our track. But mostly they come and go, like fragments of a dream.

But some of us notice these moments of ease and peace and want more. We begin to see that our usual strategies of effort and accumulation don’t work in this field. Because the habit force of the human mind is strong, our daily worries quickly overwhelm any moments of intimacy and freedom we have. This is where gradual cultivation is necessary. This is where Zen practice begins. Only by looking deeply into the matter can we begin to find a sustainable way of living the freedom that is our birthright.

A moment of insight, even a life-changing experience of the oneness of all life, quickly fades into memory—becomes something we talk about, think about, and even torments us with its necessary passing. What is left to us is to commit ourselves to the path of gradual cultivation.

Hongzhi, the Chinese Zen master who lived a few centuries before Chinul, put it this way: “The field of boundless possibilities is what exists from the very beginning. You must purify, cure, grind down or brush away all the tendencies you have fabricated into apparent habits. Then you can reside in the clear circle of brightness.”

Daily Practice: Noticing moments of ease and intimacy. As you move through your day, see if you can tune your attention to the moments ‘in between.’ We all have a narrative of what we are doing moment to moment, but what if our day is actually filled with moments of ease that are not included in the story we are telling ourselves and our situation? Let the sights and sounds, the smells and textures of your life come to you. The sound of the cars going by on the street. How the eyes blink of their own accord. How the breath comes in and out as if God himself were watching out for us. Notice the generous life that surrounds you—that is you.

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Koan Salon

Yesterday, during our Zoom Koan Salon, we took up a story from about Zen Master Dongshan, the 9th century Chinese teacher who was one of the co-founders of the Caodong (Soto) school of Zen Buddhism. The story goes like this:

Shenshan was mending clothes when Dongshan asked, “What are you doing?”
“Mending,” said Shenshan.
“How is it going?” asked Dongshan.
“One stitch follows another,” said Shenshan.
“We’ve been traveling together for twenty years and that’s all you have to say?” said       Dongshan. “How can you be so clueless?”
Shenshan asked “How do you mend, then?”
Dongshan replied “With each stitch the whole earth is spewing flames.”

Koan salons are a practice innovation first introduced by John Tarrant, a poetic, wild and creative Zen teacher who lives out in California. John is also one of the honorary founders of Boundless Way Temple. He was James Ford’s teacher who was Melissa’s teacher and then one of my teachers.

A koan salon is a community gathering to look into one of the thousands of Zen teaching stories that are called koans. These koans are often brief encounters between students and teachers like the one above. They are often enigmatic, leaving the student to puzzle out what might be going on. In the Zen tradition, teachers will often give talks using these stories as entry points into some aspect of Zen and our lives. In our Boundless Way Zen school, we also have a set curriculum of hundreds of koans that students study sequentially, one-on-one with a teacher.

The koan salon format, however, relies on the associative power of the mind and the collective wisdom of the community. After some discussion yesterday, we asked everyone to sit in meditation, then we read this koan and encouraged people to notice what arose in their hearts and minds. Then, after some silence, we read it again. And then again for a number of times. Allowing the silence to hold us in between and simply noticing the feelings, images, thoughts and associations that arose.

Usually when we ‘study’ something, we engage our analytic brain and work hard to understand. Study in Zen is different. Zen teaches that we already have what we need. The understanding and wisdom we seek is not embedded in some esoteric teaching outside of us, but rather is already present in each moment. I think it was St. Paul who said that the true ‘law’ (Dharma) is written on our hearts. It’s not something to run around trying to catch and memorize, but something much closer and more subtle than that. The truth of live cannot be gamed. But we can learn to be still and to allow our hearts to open to the deep truth that is already present.

So we sat still and listened to this simple story weaving in and out of collective silence. Then we talked in pairs (through the magic of Zoom) and then with the whole group. In this process of talking and listening, we were touched by the many dimensions of this koan. All of us heard things we hadn’t considered that led us to consider things we hadn’t thought of before. In the space between us (literally from Thailand to Colombia to Europe to the US) a rich tapestry of meaning emerged and seemed to weave itself. We were grateful for the wisdom of each and the wisdom of all.

Personal Practice: Find yourself a place and a time where you can take fifteen or twenty minutes. Settle yourself into a comfortable and upright posture. Sit still for a few minutes and just be present with how it is for you right in this moment. Notice sensation in the body, emotions, thoughts. Whatever arises, let it be as it is.

When you’re ready, read the above story to yourself. Then go back into silence and notice what arises. What words or phrases or images stand out? What makes sense and what is puzzling? Just notice. Repeat this three or four times.

For extra credit, you can write down some of your insights and puzzlements. Or better yet, tell the story to one of your friends and share with them some of the meanings that arose within you.

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Buddhas Over Worcester 2020

One of my projects in March and April was to create a piece for Boundless Way Temple’s annual Buddhas Over Worcester sculpture show. Every year we invite local artists and non-artists to create a sculpture for the Temple garden that expresses their understanding of what it means to be awake—to be a Buddha. Each artist is also invited to title their sculpture and to write a short haiku-like poem to express some intention or understanding behind their creation.

And for the past eight years, every year around the first Sunday in May, we have our grand opening. Scores of people wander through the garden examining the twenty-some sculptures, reading the titles and poems, wondering about awakening, eating sweet treats and enjoying the company. It’s one of the highlights of the year for our community.

Not this year.

Though the garden remains open with the six-foot social distancing rule in place, in mid-March we decided that the safest course of action was to cancel the show for this year. But several artists, including myself have gone ahead and created pieces anyway. Over the next few weeks some sculptures will be installed in the garden.

The official theme for the exhibit that is not going to happen this year, Waking up to wonder in the midst of the joys and sorrows of being human, still seems like a worthwhile enterprise.

The first two sculptures are in place and a third was being constructed yesterday afternoon. Below are the first two artist’s descriptions.

Title- The Three Refuges, 2020
Artist- Christine Croteau
Medium- Wood, rocks, marble
Dimensions- 12”x12”x12”
Haiku Artist Statement-
Through Awakening
Embraced By Arms of Sangha
We Find Our Path Home
(located on a square of marble to the left of the brick path just you can see the pond after you pass through the torii gates)

Title- Waking Up to Life-and-Death
Artist- David Dae An Rynick
Medium- Tibetan Prayer Flags, fallen branches, composted leaves, dirt, plants from around the garden
Dimensions- 9’ x 9’ x 4’
Haiku Artist Statement-
Falling completely apart
We give ourselves back
To nourish what comes next.
(located by the red shed in the very back of the garden)

Come visit! Spring does not care about quarantine, delights in the cold rainy weather we’ve been having and is fully blossoming in the Temple garden. Come visit! Boundless Way Temple Gardens, 1030 Pleasant Street, Worcester, MA 01602

All are welcome. We ask that you bring a mask for the protection of all beings and that you maintain our continuing social distance from other humans while you get close to the flowers.

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Making the Right Choice

All these reflections on the transformational power of choosing can veer into an apology for an inflated sense of self-importance and control. We can slip into a sense of entitlement where we begin to think that if we’re clear enough and choose wisely, our lives will be smooth and pleasant.   Or we take the good fortune of our current circumstances to be something that we have earned through our enlightened choices and hard work.

Here’s a true story that illustrates that our choices may not be as important as we think.

Many years ago, a friend introduced me to a new mountain bike trail loop. It was a lovely ride—five or six miles of winding trails through woods and pastures, over hills and through valleys. I rode the route with him two Saturdays in a row. The next week I decided to try it on my own.

Everything began fine—I remembered the familiar landmarks and enjoyed being my own company on the narrow forest paths. Then I reached a fork in the trail that I didn’t remember. Did we go left or right here? I couldn’t remember.

I was just a little nervous. But I paused, took a couple deep breaths and tuned in to my deeper intuition. Left felt like it was the right direction to go, so I took the left fork and rode on. Things soon looked familiar and I was at ease again. Until it happened again a second time. An unfamiliar fork in the trail. Again I was a little nervous, but found my inner equilibrium, trusted my intuition and rode on.

I was delighted and just a little proud of myself when I completed the loop back where my car was patiently waiting. Instead of panicking when I didn’t remember, I had paused, trusted, and found my way to some deeper kind of knowing. A good life lesson, I thought.

A week later, I rode the same trail again by myself. This time I decided to be adventurous. At the first fork, instead of going left, I went right. And to my surprise, after a short while, I was back on the same trail. At the next fork in the trail I did the same thing. Again, to my surprise and delight, this other fork also led back to the main trail.

I arrived back at my car that day with a revised sense of my own self-importance. It was not my deep powers of intuition that had served me, but rather the path itself that had taken care of me. The correct answer was both right and left. I realized that the only way I could have failed would have been not to choose.

I’m reminded of the wonderful adage ‘You can’t steer a parked car.’ When the car is motionless, playing with the steering wheel has no impact on the direction of the car. Sometimes, the most important thing is simply to get the car moving. Even if you are headed in the exact wrong direction, when the car is moving, you can eventually turn it in the direction you want.

Perhaps the choices we agonize over are not what they appear to be. Sometimes there is a clear choice, one option that ‘makes sense.’ But other times we have to make decisions without enough information, we can’t know how things will turn out. What if all our choices lead us back to the main trail? What if many choices are not a matter of right or wrong, but rather simply moving into the future? What if our lives are not just a matter of ‘getting it right?’

My teacher’s teacher, Zen Master Seung Sahn, once had a student come to him who was trying to decide whether to stay in the monastery or go back to graduate school. Seung Sahn listened patiently to his troubled listing of all the reasons to stay and all the reasons to go. Then Seung Sahn said in his pigeon English: ‘You got coin? Flip coin and do what coin says.’

Daily Practice: As you move through your day, be aware of some of the choices you are making. Notice when you feel the pressure to make the ‘right’ decision. What if all your choices led to your one true life? What if there is more freedom to choose than you think? Once or twice today, see what happens if you take the ‘other’ trail and choose to do something you don’t usually do. Notice what happens.

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Choosing Ourselves

This choosing is a subtle thing. We certainly don’t have the freedom to choose to do or be whatever we want. The liberation we talk about in Zen is not about being masters of the universe. We humans are fragile and limited creatures. And when we begin to pay attention, we can see that most of the important things that have happened to us in our lives have been partially or wholly caused by factors and synchronicities beyond our control.

A psychologist friend of mine once told me that the goal of therapy is to choose to be who you already are.

You might wish you were taller or shorter—wiser or less anxious. You might wish your parents had been different or that someone else had won the last presidential election. You might wish that you didn’t have to wear a mask and gloves when you went to the grocery store. Most of the universe is beyond our control. Everything that has happened in your life and in the universe has already happened. You cannot go back and change it. In this exact moment, you simply are who you are. No amount of wishing you were different or ‘things’ were different will change what is already here.

Byron Katie once wrote “When I argue with reality, I lose—but only 100 percent of the time.” So perhaps the path to freedom and ease lies acceptance—in giving up our ancient argument with reality.

Ralph Waldo Emerson put it this way: “There is a time in every man’s [or woman’s] education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide, that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe if full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. (Self-Reliance)

Emerson speaks of self-acceptance–to take ourselves ‘for better, for worse’ as we are. Our ‘nourishment’, our freedom, comes from cultivating the ‘plot of ground’ which has been given to us. The plot of ground is you, exactly as you are, and the circumstances of your life, exactly as they are. In Zen sometimes we say that the precise situation of your life right now is just what you need to wake up. No need to wait for more favorable conditions or some other time. Right here. Right now. Everything you need is already present.

This is perhaps one of the most incomprehensible perspectives on life, that we, as we are, are enough and that this moment, whatever it is, contains everything we need. Most of us are firmly believers in the inadequacy ourselves and our circumstances. The billion dollar self-help industry is powered by this sense that we could and should be better than we are. The deeper truth of the self-help movement is that cultivation is required, but the real work required can only start from this basic ground of acceptance of what is already here. (This acceptance, of course, includes the acceptance of realizing that sometimes I just really wish things were different than they are.)

Ursula K. LeGuin had this to say about choice: “You thought, as a boy [or girl], that a mage is one who can do anything. So I thought once. So did we all. And the truth is at as a man’s real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do.”  (The Wizard of Earthsea)

Our essential choice is whether or not we align with what is already true. This truth is subtle and ever changing. It’s the truth of what is deepest in our hearts.   It’s the truth of the current circumstances of the world around us, whether we ‘approve’ or not. As we slowly give up our ancient addiction to objection, we can begin to see what is really here and to work in skillful ways with ourselves and everything we encounter.

Daily Practice: Can you notice the objections as they arise within you today? Notice when you wish it were different or when things seem ‘wrong’ or when you don’t get your way. Can you just observe what it is like to object? No need to change or even analyze. The practice is not objecting to objection. Just observe and observe. Be curious about what is really going on.

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Living With Uncertainty

Many commentators refer to these days as a time of uncertainty. This uncertainty is often cited as one of the most challenging aspects of our lives in the pandemic. But is this uncertainty really a bad thing? And whether it is or not, if this really is a time of uncertainty, how can we meet it in creative and constructive ways?

The human mind seems to like a clear and simple stories that explain the world around us. Our minds naturally move toward binary categories: Is our current uncertainty good or bad? Are we safe or in danger? Will we be OK or not? We just want to know.

Once the mind forms its opinion, we often feel a sense of relief—‘Well, at least I know.’ The opinion does not need to be true to be comforting. I don’t have to be accurate or complete in my thinking to feel right and settled in my opinion. The settledness of mind simply feels good. As long as there is uncertainty, some part of me is thinking and wondering and trying to solve the problem.

But one of the problems with ‘knowing’ is confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is the tendency human beings have to notice the things that confirm our opinion and either not see or not give the same weight to things that contradict our viewpoint. We tend to like people who agree with us (the ones who see the world as clearly as we do) and struggle with or avoid those who have other opinions.

In the Zen tradition, we say not-knowing is good. Rather than a problem to be solved, not-knowing is a way of directly meeting the reality of our lives. (As I write this, I am aware that I am now encouraging us to put ‘not-knowing’ in the binary category of ‘good’ as opposed to ‘bad’. While this is slightly ironic, creating the same feeling of certainty I was recently criticizing, it does seem useful in helping us meet and work skillfully with the ever-changing world around and within us.)

Shunryu Suzuki, the teacher who founded the San Francisco Zen Center, once famously said “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”   Being an expert means approaching a situation with a lot of experience; you already know what is going on and you know what you are going to do. While this can be wonderfully beneficial in some situations, for life in general, this kind of ‘knowing’ causes a narrowing of engagement with the world around us and fewer options going forward. We don’t see what is here, we simply see what we expect.

Part of our Zen training is learning to be comfortable with the discomfort of this sometimes unsettled feeling of not-knowing. As long as we think we ‘know’ we are stuck in the world of the past – the world of the mind. When we realize that we don’t know everything (or even very much at all), we can move with greater ease in the world that is constantly changing and evolving.

The truth is that we don’t ever really know what is coming next. You may think you know what the day will bring, and you may be right some large percentage of the time, but you never really know. Instead of trying to base our lives on how much we know, can we begin to create a foundation of not knowing – of openness to what arises from moment to moment?

Can we notice our natural desire for certainty and rather than trying to fix it by making up some fixed position, can we simply to allow ourselves not to know? Can we be more curious about what is here than about our opinions about what is here?

The great 20th century poet William Carlos Williams carried a pad of paper with him as he moved through his work day as a doctor making house calls. The top of the page was always titled ‘What I noticed today I have never noticed before.’

Maybe today we can all keep our eyes open just like he did.

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Tend and Befriend

A few weeks ago, my daughter recommended that I read a book on parenting called THE GARDENER AND THE CARPENTER by Alison Gopnik. I assumed that her recommendation was innocent, that this was not just a subtle way to point out all the things I could have done differently as a parent or should do as a grandparent, so I got a copy of the book for my Kindle.

Spoiler alert.

Gardener is the correct answer. The carpenter parent is the one who thinks they know just what their child should turn out to be and tries to make sure they become that. The gardener parent is the one who creates the conditions for their child to become what they are. Of course nothing is ever that simple, but Gopnik weaves together her professional knowledge as a neuroscientist who studies child behavior and her role as a grandmother to introduce some fascinating perspectives.

Gopnik begins her book by asserting that ‘parenting’ should not be used as a verb. Being a parent is not a task you can do like fixing a car or cooking dinner. Parenting is not a kind of work that we turn on and turn off. ‘Instead, to be a parent—to care for a child—is to be part of a profound and unique human relationship, to engage in a particular kind of love.’ This is in the section entitled ‘From Parenting to Being a Parent.’ She is encouraging a shift from our culture’s obsession with doing and performing, to parenting as a way of being. Sounds good to me for parenting as well as most aspects of being human.

Gopnik explores the caring bonds between parents and children in detail; from the evolutionary necessities to the biochemical mechanisms. The bond between humans and their children is very different, both in length and quality, from the bonds of other mammals and their offspring. (She makes no reference to turtles’ parenting style at all, though I know that there were some days as a parent when I thought the idea of just leaving the eggs buried in the sand and trusting the little ones to find their way to the ocean seemed like a really attractive parenting strategy.)

One of the factors in bonding between parents and their children that scientist are exploring is the role of oxytocin, sometimes known as the ‘tend and befriend’ hormone. This is the hormone that floods mothers while birth and is closely related to feelings of trust, commitment and attachment. But oxytocin is not just a one-time gift to mothers to encourage them to care for their helpless infants.

The activity of caring itself produces oxytocin and related chemicals.   Fathers (and grandparents?) who are significantly involved in caring for their infants show higher levels of oxytocin and more interest in their infants that fathers who are disengaged. Oxytocin is also related to romance and sexual love. Oxytocin levels rise with hugging and touching.

This all makes me suspect that many of us, during this time of the coronavirus social distancing are significantly low in our oxytocin levels. One way to mitigate against this is perhaps to consciously do more tending of what is around us, whether we are parents or not.

During our Zen training retreats, sesshin, we always devote part of the day to samu, caretaking practice. Washing the dishes and sweeping the floors are considered equally important to sitting in meditation. After reading this book, I wonder about the physiological impact of this caretaking practice. Taking care of our physical environment may have the same beneficial biochemical impact on our beings as taking care of little beings.

When we care for something, anything, we enter into a mutually enriching reciprocal relationship. We touch and are touched by the world around us. So, I encourage us all in this time when we cannot hug and walk shoulder to shoulder as we used to, to consciously tend to our homes, our plants, our pets and the people around us – at whatever distance is appropriate – for their benefit and for ours.

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