The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Me, or You)

Walt Whitman came back into my life two weeks ago, just before coming to the Zen Mountain Monastery, near Woodstock, NY, where I am currently residing for the month of January.  He came to me in a hardbound green book, containing all his writings.  This came to me from a gentle and loving hand, attached to a heart and mind that are profoundly human.  Who knew that through a man who died long ago, whose writings I thought I knew, I would discover the song of myself again for the first time?  

from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

"I have perceived that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful curious breathing laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them... to touch any one... to rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a    moment... what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight... I swim in it as in a sea.

There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them and in the contact and odor of them that pleases the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well."

This is our work here at the monastery.  We seek not to retreat into ourselves, but to be with ourselves just as we are in the world.  We seek to lean into the experience of being alive.  Not to cultivate an absence of thoughts, but to be at peace with the thoughts as they come and go.

We generate a story about what it means to be ourselves.  Are we good or bad?  Does a certain thought make me evil or kind?  What does it mean if I don't know what I want right now?  How shall I be in the world to make my life worthwhile?  If I don't perpetuate the story of what it means to be me, what will be left and who will I be?

In zazen, which is the formal sitting meditation, and in all other life here at the monastery, we are seeking to find the still point where we don't buy into the story of meaning.  What happens when I am cleaning a toilet and am just present with my breath?  What happens when I chop wood and shovel snow, and let the thoughts flow through without latching on to them or struggling against them?  Do I die?  Worse yet, do I become nihilistic and shallow once I get "free from attachment"?  How can I live a good life if I'm not beating myself with the whip of my conditioned mind, shaped by all the elements of my society that have told me what is Right and Wrong and whom I now carry in my mental machinery?

My experience is that in the moments of life where I can dissolve the story, where I can consider all the facts and feel joy in my existence, where I can feel the fullness and emptiness of the universe at once, where I can be loving though I don't know how, where I can accept my accidental cruelties due to my ignorance... these moments are full of compassion.  I can feel that all of us are the same.

You and I are the same, though completely different.  We are made of the same elements in identical arrangements (it's amazing what carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen can do when they spring to life).  We operate with nearly identical biological processes.  We, for the most part, share faculties that give us rough approximations of what is happening around us.

But, we also keep ourselves wrapped in the illusion of separateness, from each other and from the universe, by our stories.  I like rum raisin and she likes coconut.  I am a Buddhist and he is a Presbyterian.  He is the Secretary of War and I talk about peace.  He leaves dirty dishes on the counter after cooking and I am a conscientious person.  He is the thoughtless 1%, and I am the awake and aware 99%.  These are endless, if we choose for them to be so.

A different path that we can take is to realize our unity.  Freed from the clinging or aversion to our stories, the unity of experience overtakes us.  We're all eating, drinking, breathing, and seeking warmth in the winter.  We all feel better living from a place of love in our hearts instead of fear in our minds.  We feel joy in our bodies sharing a sense of connection with each other.  We wish to break through our limitations, and we wish the same for others.  We are the same and different at the same time, existing simultaneously and seamlessly together.   

Perhaps a question is begged here: if we accept ourselves just as we are, how we will we engage with and, in this the darkest of all hours, save the world?  How will we turn the Red States back to Blue?  How will we keep fundamentalist Christianity out of our government?  How will we convince the North Koreans, Iranians, Southern Baptists, Republicans, our mothers who don't listen enough, couples with more than one child, the neighbors with the noisy dog, Israelis, people who leave the lights on, people who don't check with us before making plans, people who don't love us exactly as we need to be loved every moment of every single day (which incidentally would be so much better if you just saw that you need to change and repent of your old ways)... how will we convince all these people that they need to see the world from our enlightened viewpoint?  How will we do it?  How????

The zendo is still and quiet.  The late morning light comes through the south windows, slanting across the black cushions and the square mats under them.   Outside the field is crusted with hard and bright snow.  The creek coming down the mountain gurgles under the small ice waterfalls that are frozen on the rock ledges.  The trees are bare, leaning into the wind and calling out for nothing against a bright empty sky.

I bow as I step across the threshold, and walk quietly to a mat halfway down the empty row.  I bow to my seat, and then turn to bow to the middle of the room.  I pick up the cushion, set it aside, and kneel down.  I tuck my homemade wooden seiza bench under me, and sit down on it.  I rock gently side to side to find a balance point.  I smooth out the fabric of my gray robe where it flows down to the mat all around me.  I place my hands in my lap in the cosmic mudra that is standard practice here.  I look at my watch one last time, and then gaze toward a spot on the floor a few feet in front of me.  The baseboard heaters tick wildly for a few seconds, and then settle into silence.

I am here, as best I can be.  Sometimes I count my breath and am in the river of my body that flows through my life.  Sometimes I sit and worry about the future, and why I am how I am.  Why do I struggle in marriage?  What kind of work do I really want to do?  Will I cut it as a therapist?  I wonder how long it would take to build a 10x10 hut all by myself.  It would be nice to have a good portable table saw for that kind of project.  How deep will a spiritual practice take me?  I wonder if that's a... and back to the breath.  Just like that.  Just like that.  The still point is always there.  It is not the end, nor is it the beginning.  It is not an anchor, but I can anchor to it.  I am not empty when I have no clinging in my mind, and I am not full.  I am uniquely and completely myself when I realize my connection to all things.  Though it may feel that way sometimes, there are no gaps in reality.  The puzzle is rich and infinite, and my heart burns to explore it.

The shimmer of a steel spoon in the mug,
still hands hold the gentle book -
the cat adjusts its paw.