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I sometimes think
that one of the greatest disappointments human
beings face is the realization that the life they
chose is not the life they any longer want to
lead. So much energy and effort and sacrifice went
into whatever the goal once was. Money, job,
family, distant lands, intelligence, a new car …
all of it once felt so open and free and
satisfying. Now, the trap snaps shut and the old
saying, “be careful what you pray for, you may
just get it” takes on a sharpened relevance.
This life may be
“OK” in a certain sense – certainly there are
moments of pleasure and satisfaction – but the
once-imagined joy, the freedom and security that
beckoned are not quite right. Things feel stale
and confining and splintered, a strait jacket that
once looked like wings. There are good moments to
be sure, but something is missing. Worse, this all
may have happened more than once. And worst of all
may be the realization that there is no one to
blame but myself.
Actually, coming
to such a realization, however cloying it may
feel, is quite a good thing. Think of the number
of
people who spend
their whole lives trying to make someone or
something else responsible for where and who they
are. Further, it is precisely such a realization
that can encourage a willingness to do something
about it. And further still, there are skills that
have accumulated: We know what DOESN’T work – the
many things that only lead back to the old circle
of dreams that turn into strait jackets.
The willingness
to do something about it. Is there some way to
settle matters and if so what is that way?
As a first step
there has to be some examination of the situation.
So i took a
vacation. What is
the nature of this beast? What is it that leads
from joy to sorrow and back again, from a sense of
wholeness to a sense of fragmentation and back
again? It doesn’t seem to work when I lay my
problems and pleasures at someone else’s doorstep,
so I examine my own doorstep.
With some
examination, things grow a bit clearer. Isn’t it
my own habits, built up over a lifetime, that seem
to guide these steps. And what are those habits?
Looking as closesly as possible, I find that those
wily Buddhists weren’t too far wrong: Greed, anger
and folly, spliced together with attachments to
each, are forceful indeed. I want what I want when
I want it, but have I really taken the time to
examine who this “I” is? The answer comes back, no
I haven’t. I have assumed I know who I am and
acted accordingly. If I dream it, it must be so.
Since it doesn’t turn out “so,” something is out
of whack.
Examining
further, I discover change, a matter about which I
was capable of saying a great deal but incapable
of really acknowledging in my heart or actualizing
in my life. If I acknowledge change in the deepest
possible way, where would that leave “Me?"… you
know, the “me” with dreams and staleness, with joy
and strait jackets, the one who is the same from
one day to the next, the one others call “man” or
“woman,” “kind” or “unkind,” “tall” or “short,”
“wise” or “deluded,” “father” or “mother,” “rich”
or “poor?” Without the handholds, where would “I”
be? On the other hand, WITH the handholds, where
has it gotten “me?”
Without the
handholds is scary. With the handholds is
unsatisfactory. This examining business leads to
some tight and fiery places. Sometimes there is a
desire to fall back into a realm of blaming and
crediting others, of being full of perfect dreams
that dissolve on contact, of a sure-footed “me”
who succeeds and fails… bring on the Tooth Fairy
or God or Easter Bunny or magic bullet! But there
is no going back for those who take their
examinations seriously. Stopping before the
examination is over – falling into old reliable
ways of finding the one sure answer – is a fool’s
mission, a zealot’s delight. There is only one
direction – forward.
It takes courage
and patience and doubt. Change is everywhere and
always and examining its furthest reaches is the
task at hand. Breath after breath, day after day,
week after week, year after year. Talk is cheap.
Examination is expensive … examination will rob
you deaf, dumb and blind. But as we came into the
world penniless and naked, so pennilessness and
nakedness are not so bad. When there is nothing to
buy, why buy it? How could we don what we already
have on? Doesn’t the sun feel good against this
naked skin?
I heard that Soen
Roshi, my teacher’s teacher, once stood before a
group of Zen students and asked, “Do you want to
see what a bodhisattva looks like?” And he
proceeded to strip down to his skivvies. Layer
after layer of robes … down to his skivvies, at
which point he said something like, “there are
some things even a bodhisattva doesn’t take off.”
Layer after layer
is examined. Layer after layer is set aside. Layer
after layer of comfort and camouflage.
What we keep on
and what we take off is entirely our
responsibility. Not taking responsibility leads to
dissatisfaction. Taking responsibility … well,
it’s like skinny dipping – doesn’t that feel
better? And being naked, how would it be possible
to fail?
There… doesn’t
the sun feel good against this naked skin? |
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