When will this be over?
- At March 31, 2020
- By drynick
- In Reflections
- 0
Already we’ve come to the end of March and there’s no end in sight. Easter services have already been canceled. Here at Boundless Way Zen Temple, we’re in the third week of suspending all in-person gatherings. Originally we thought two weeks of physical distancing would probably be sufficient. Now it’s uncertain whether two months will be long enough.
Welcome to the new normal. Wash your hands. Stay six feet away from others when you go out. Be careful. This is no vacation, but an endurance contest. How long can we survive, isolated in these small houses and apartments?
And the mind, seemingly on its own, runs on ahead – wondering about the future. What will things be like when this is over? Will my work still be working? What about my carefully crafted financial plans? Will I ever be able to go out to eat again? How long will this take? Will my parents be safe? How will I manage?
Even as I write these questions, I feel my heart beating slightly faster and a my stomach turns uneasily with the subtle sensations of fear.
Gregory Bateson, the great anthropologist, thinker, and occasional Zen student once said: “The mind creates the world then says ‘I didn’t do it’” We our lives within the many worlds of our creation. This creative participation is mostly hidden from our awareness. But just in reading the words above, as the mind shifts its attention and we can see how this operates. Though the world has not essentially changed in the last five minutes, my experience of the world changes radically. Worlds of ease. Worlds of fear.
What are the resources and the skills we have to manage in this new normal where danger is real in some new way? Where we can no longer pretend that life will obligingly go on according to our predictive illusions?
‘Even though I walk through the valley and the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.’ The words of the 23rd Psalm come to me—arising from some forgotten corner of my mind. I am surprised how comforting they are to me. Is it remembering that human beings have always faced danger and fear? Is it the courageous recognition of this land of the ‘shadow of death’ and the assertion of not being overcome with fear?
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? Time to unearth and turn toward something more trustworthy than our own competence and cleverness.
New Time Frames
- At March 23, 2020
- By drynick
- In Reflections
- 0
We’re into the second week of our online Temple meditation practice. Melissa and I (with Corwyn’s help) are getting more comfortable with the new logistics, but the details still require a new level of awareness while practicing. (Maybe not a bad thing.) Holding to our ‘normal’ Temple meditation schedule has felt like an important anchor for us and for our community in this time when so much is in flux. Seeing everyone together on the screen as we practice, alone together in our own homes, continues to be a welcome reminder of our connection and our interdependence.
My time-scale of expectation is also being disrupted. A week ago, we decided to suspend in-person practice at the Boundless Way Temple and go on-line for two weeks, then re-evaluate. Some of us were afraid that this was overreacting, but it seemed reasonable to be cautious and error on the side of safety. It turns out that we wildly underestimated the scope, danger and time-scale of this viral pandemic.
No one can definitively say when this pandemic will end, but no one is talking weeks anymore. Various epidemiology modelers are now theorizing it will be months and perhaps even years till we are out of danger. One recent article in the Boston Globe referred to the possibility of recurring periods of social distancing till the end of 2021. Yikes!
The truth is, we don’t know.
And the truth is that, here, in this situation, is where we find ourselves. Where we find ourselves in the sense that we don’t really know how we got here, we’re just here. (As I don’t know how I have managed to become a sixty-seven year old when I was sure I was a much younger person.)
And we find ourselves here in the sense that this moment and this particularly uncertain time is the only time and place where we can live our lives—where we can begin to know who we are and what we are here to do.
There is no other possible world. Things could not be different.
My wish this morning is that we might we all leave behind whatever is necessary to allow us to live full and meaningful lives – to meet these challenges and learn these new ways of being – and to appreciate this brief and precious gift of being human.
Follow David!