Yesterday, I put away all my tools. I shook out the sawdust from the nooks and crannies, and wiped off the well-used sawblades coated with a fine layer of pitch, copper, and paint. I put a little lithium grease in the rotating base of my miter saw. I swept out my truck, and wiped down the boxes that hold all these useful treasures. I boxed up all the odds and ends from my past three years of carpentry here in the mountains - the remnants of nails, screws, glue, blades, chalk, and caulk. It was a nice walk down memory lane, thinking of the the jobs I've done while laying out my life in the dappled shade of a Saturday afternoon.
I did all this in preparation for entering the zen monastery in the beginning of September. I'm retiring for a year, perhaps more, to change the focus of my life. I feel a little sadness at closing down my carpentry work, but not too much. Mainly I'm feeling the energy of making a conscious change in direction, of switching the tack of my life for at least a while.
We live our lives as a response to the circumstances of the world around us, and the world of thoughts and feelings within us. This move is a response to the life I live in, to the life I'm creating as I go along. I think of it as karma - not a reward or punishment, nor a clear case of some kind of cause and effect. For me karma is about working with the energy, patterns, and threads of my life without worrying too much about why things seem to be the way they are. (In fact, the Buddha warned against trying to "figure out" karma in an explicit way. He said it is infinitely complex and will make you crazy if you try to pin it down.)
There are various threads of my karma that I can roughly perceive in my life right now. I'm drawn to zen practice (meditation, work, simplicity, frugality, and a worldview that I share with other practitioners). I am privileged enough to be able to focus on practice for a while, which is no small thing in a world where many people need to struggle just to survive. I am in the prime of my life physically, so I am able to give with my body and mind in ways that I may not be able to in the future.
Also, I feel that, right now, living in a monastery is a valid response to the tangible insanity of our modern culture. Mass shootings have become common. The climate has become unstable. Systemic violence between the police and people of color seems to be everywhere. Economic inequality and democratic breakdown are pairing to create a modern fusion of complacency and alienation unprecedented in human history as far as I can tell.
In my time in the monastery, I aim to explore the roots of these social and ecological problems in myself. It has become clear in the past three years of zen practice that the greed and anger out there in the world are also present in me, as long as I hold on to the notion of a separate self that I need to defend from the world. I can make the case that my anger is different from the anger of someone shooting people in a church, but I also see that the roots of experience that I touch in my meditation and reflection are the same roots that motivate racial hatred and killing. As long as I hold myself as separate from the rest of the world in any way, then I will, at some point, necessarily have to defend this Self in thoughts, speech, or action from things that seem to threaten my identity. How that unfolds is the story of humanity's shadow - wars, slavery, oppression, endless arguments about right and wrong.
For me, I've discovered that a powerful antidote to the fundamental problem of a separate Self is to turn the light around and examine myself. Who am I? What aspects of me or the world are actual, real Things? As I investigate all the phenomena of the world, I have so far only discovered that everything arises and passes away. If that is true, than what is my identity that I keep clinging to? Why do I tenaciously cling to an illusory sense of self? How can I soften that sense of self through being kind and loving?
My answers are not in any particular actions, but in how I am living my life. It is the process rather than the content, if you will. How can I sip a cup of coffee generously? How can I be firm with someone compassionately? How can I get closer to anger in myself or others? How can I accept the world as it seems to be without necessarily endorsing the aspects that I dislike? This is my journey right now. It feels good, it is sufficient beginning, and yet it is only a beginning. I hope every moment in my life is like that.
In Buddhism we talk about merit, which I take roughly to mean good or useful energy. We offer it or dedicate it to others, as a reminder that our practice is actually to help the whole world and not just move ourselves along some imagined path of self-improvement. In that spirit, if I should make any merit this year, I offer it to all those who need it. It's for you in your rough spots, as was all the energy that helped me through my hard times. Maybe it's all the good things in our lives that we recollect and call upon in our efforts to make the world a better place.
In packing up my tools, I felt deep gratitude to those who have helped me along the way by teaching me, working with me, hiring me, criticizing me, supporting me, and doing everything else that needed to be done. This goes beyond carpentry into chaplaincy, teaching, backpacking, painting, and writing. It goes into the nooks and crannies of my life, into the marrow of my curious bones. I am supported by the efforts of all those who have come before since the beginning of time, which is such a tremendous gift. If you are reading this, the gift of this moment has been given to you too. What a joy and a treasure...
