Dispatch from Mt. Tremper in the Heart of Autumn

At times it sounds trite, but these days it feels so fresh - I came to train here at the monastery because I wish to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and avoid coming to my deathbed and worrying whether I could have done more to wake up to life.  

These first six weeks of residential training at Zen Mountain monastery have been so many things - a microscope, a pressure cooker, improvisational dance, a dream, an escape, a stone well in the middle of an empty field at sunset.  As residents we are charged to do our best to pay attention in every moment and see what our minds are doing.  When we get lost, we acknowledge that and return our attention to this moment.  This process repeats itself endlessly.  As I enter such a strong of a container of awareness practice, many things about myself and the world are illuminated.

For instance, the teachers have given me the assignment for this year to be the bookkeeper.  Say it with me... yikes!  Having never had a desk job, and being generally averse to spending a lot of life seated in front of a computer, my initial reaction was strong resistance.  Due to being in the monastery, however, turning down the job is not really an option.  So now I'm the bookkeeper.  

What do I do as bookkeeper?  I enter lots of invoices for various retreats, try to stay on top of people paying their student dues, make sure the ins and outs of money flows match up precisely, assist the office manager in making sure the bills get paid on time, etc.  What else do I do?  I have some moments of deep struggle.  I'm on an unfamiliar PC, doing work that is very new to me, and trying to pay attention to a series of small tasks that all need to be entered with both accuracy and precision even if I'm doing 30 in a row.  I can't zone out or else I end up making mistakes, which I've certainly done in my first month.  If I do make a mistake, it's still bookkeeping - I have to go back and correct it and leave a paper trail for anyone who may look at it in the future and try to understand what happened.  

On a deeper level, I get to see and feel myself doing this job.  When I'm stuck, unsure how to proceed, and don't want to interrupt the office manager yet again to get help with a simple task, how am I proceeding in that moment?  Whatever I do is my response, from freezing up to getting angry at myself to just asking for help.  I feel stories come up, stories that feel deep and old.  I feel tense because I think that my identity as "someone who gets things done and is highly competent" is being threatened.  Is that really true?  I don't know.  I have to be patient and look more closely.  

When I slow down and pay meticulous attention, I also see this job as a chance to give.  Someone has to take care of the money.  It is foolish to deny that we live in a society that places great emphasis on money and how it flows.  I am sometimes honored, and subsequently humbled, that they have chosen me to keep the books even for a year.  They must see something in me that I don't always see, especially in my narrow, fearful moments.  It is also a chance to see myself in a new light.  Maybe I can be meticulous and detail-oriented in a computer job.  If it doesn't always come easy, so what?  I have found nothing in life worth doing that does not require some degree of patience and effort.  

So really, who am I?  Am I a carpenter who is now stuck in a desk job?  I have done a lot of carpentry in my life, but does that mean I am a carpenter?  That sounds suspiciously like there is a Platonic essence of "me" in the universe, which doesn't sit well since I've never actually found that.  Am I competent or incompetent?  Another hard question.  I'm put in a position with very little training and expected to do my best.  It is perfectly reasonable, and expected, really, that I will have lots of questions for a while as I learn how to do things.  Does competency have some independent existence, and I get to have it or not have it?  I don't think so, but it sure feels like that sometimes.  

Am I a thing (soul, bag of skin, carpenter, bookkeeper, poet), or is there just the process of life unfolding?  If I am a thing with a real existence, where and when is that thing?  I'm certainly not the same moment to moment.  I look different every day.  I'm physically different after every breath, every sip of tea, every meal, every trip to the bathroom.  No scientist has yet located either the soul or the mind in our bodies anywhere.  If there is just process, then how do I make peace with that when sometimes I really, really want to be a thing, especially a competent, thoughtful, kind, funny, handsome... well, you get it.  These are the kind of reflections that come and go when you're bookkeeping at a monastery in the mountains.

So am I just navel-gazing, asking ontological and epistemological questions while avoiding real encounters with life?  A valid question, especially in these times of dire need.  I think of this when people still burn down churches in the South in response to black people organizing for their own peace and safety.  I think of this when I read about mass shootings and the age of mass incarceration.  I think of this when I read about every side torturing people from the other side in Every War, Everywhere.  Someone needs to slow down this insanity train we call human civilization.  Is it me?  Am I doing my part?

I don't know, but I can tell you this.  Right now I don't see my way to a life of cloistered monastic living.  In some ways it would be appealing.  I get to live in a well-functioning intentional community of people committed to trying to be kind and honest with each other.  I'm really glad I get to practice in this intense setting for a year, because I so clearly see the benefit in examining and illuminating our true nature.  I think zen practice is really great for that.  Certainly not the only way, but a powerful one.  

What I want to carry out into the world is a softer, more pliable sense of self.  The more I practice, the more often I see that you and I are deeply, truly connected.  We are indeed all just aspects of this beautiful process of life unfolding.  When I can really rest in this process, I feel less defensive and more open.  I can listen and be more present with those in need.  I am kinder to myself, and want to be kind to others in turn.  I see more of the world as sacred and worthy of my care and regard.  I see that to truly turn outwards, we need to first turn the light around and examine ourselves - with curiosity, love, and patience.

Who are you?  How do you want to be in the world?  I know that we all want to do something generous with our lives, to contribute to healing rather than hurting.  How will we offer our deepest, brightest truth?  I don't think it is found in a solid thing, either out in the world or inside ourselves.  So where is it?  

You Reading This, Be Ready

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life –

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

           

                       - William Stafford