Perspectives

Migrating Blog

2011-12-22T03:29:00.000-08:00

Oops - I forgot to mention that I've begun posting to a new blog. If I were more savvy, I would create an automatic link from here, but since I'm not, you'll have to find your way there on your own. Here's the new address:
ThisTruthNeverFails.blogspot.com
Hope to see you there.

October First

2011-10-01T02:15:00.000-07:00

October has snuck up on me again. I didn’t know yesterday was my last day of September. I thought it was just a normal day—just one in a long series of days – beginning in ancient times (when did the first days start? Were there days when the earth was hot and molten? Or did they start with the oceans? Or with the first single celled organisms? Or with the first human to discern the pattern of alternating light and dark?) Beginning in ancient times and extending out to the incomprehensible future.

Of course there won’t be days after the sun runs down—when the photon blessings of that fiery orb no longer shower this blue green planet. Though by that time, after an unimaginably long period of imperceptible cooling, we certainly won’t be around to notice and this blue green beauty will long ago have turned to white. Entirely frozen. Forever frozen. Will there be traces of us left beneath the miles of ice. Will someone from a far distant planet earn whatever his equivalent of a PhD is by writing about the possibility of ancient life on the ice planet in the milky way revolving around a fading star?

Maybe with his super-tronic telescope he finds us one day. And the revolutions and limited light are just right in that moment. And he sees a brief shadow on his screen. He sees a faint shape – an irregular shape – or a regular shape – but something that gets him dreaming about not being alone in the universe.

The respectable people of his world encourage him to work on more productive topics – like refining time travel or improving holo-deck technology – but he is stubborn and refuses to listen. And slowly, over time, his impossible evidence mounts. Things that shouldn’t be there. A morning glory seed that was caught in the act of sprouting. A diamond on a metallic circle - with someone’s initials scratched in it. Or maybe a pair of dirty underwear encased in amber – that leads him to the astonishing conjecture that these life forms had tube-like protuberances hanging from the bottom of their heart chamber. His ridiculous persistence pays off and his theory wins grudging acceptance, though everyone knows it couldn’t really be true.

Yes, it’s October. Just another day and some new beginning. Leaves falling faster. Days growing shorter. Up in the early morning darkness. Dreaming of unreasonable persistence and of being discovered.

On Reading the Diamond Sutra

2011-09-24T04:01:00.000-07:00

The other day I was complaining to a friend about my confusion and frustration in beginning to read the Diamond Sutra, one of the seminal texts of the Mahayana tradition. George and I are thinking of offering a study/dialogue group to explore this sutra and I thought I’d better get a head start. But as I started to read these unfamiliar words translated from ancient Chinese and Sanskrit, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of my own stupidity and dullness. These celebrated words of the Buddha lay limp and incomprehensible on the page, refusing me any way in. Then I realized that I must be a poor excuse of a Zen teacher – one who can’t even make sense of the basic texts of the tradition.

My friend quickly and cheerfully clarified the matter for me. She said “Oh, you must just be a stupid Zen teacher.” This made me laugh and breath a great sigh of relief. The burden of expectation was lifted. I quickly saw that I can easily be an excellent stupid Zen teacher – perhaps one of the very best. I just have to be myself. Then I know what I know and I don’t know what I don’t know. The words that make sense with my experience make sense. The words that don’t, don’t.

So I am continuing my investigation into the Diamond Sutra, but with a new perspective. Reading as a stupid Zen master, my incomprehension is not a problem, but rather a starting point. I can now notice whatever arises rather than invest my energy in self-judgment and striving.

I’m now on about the fourth line. I’ve settled down with the Buddha after he has come back from his daily begging in town. I’ve bowed at his feet, circled around him three times in a clockwise fashion, and begun to listen to his strange voice from across the centuries. Being rather dull, I don’t expect to understand much, but I'm hoping that just being here is enough.

Coming Home

2011-09-23T03:32:00.000-07:00

I didn’t really want to come home. I wanted to stay hidden in the hills of northern Wales—to buy an old stone farmhouse nestled in the green but barren mountains of Snowdonia. With a view of the valley stretching out in front and peaks rising in the distance. Maybe some sheep wandering in oddly shaped stone bounded fields. And I would disappear into my daily routine – reading and writing and doing chores around the house. An occasional ramble on foot or on bike to explore the ancient landscapes – following the trails that lure me up and down the steep inclines.

But being a responsible adult, I didn’t honestly consider this. Honoring the path of the ticket already purchased. The sweet and sometimes sticky web of connection that is my daily life here at the Temple in Worcester. The ring of the doorbell 15 minutes before meditation. The friends and strangers that come – shyly or boldly to sit in silence – together. The sound of the bells and the familiar chants calling out for refuge. And the ten thousand pieces of plans and meetings, commitments and conversations that dance in the air. The ancient roads of community and practice – every bit as steep and dramatic as the rocky paths of Snowdonia.

Can I hide in these verdant hills? Can I disappear into the life that is already here? Just these dishes. Just this writing. Encountering each situation, each relationship as a new piece of geography – a new perspective in the wild and familiar hills of being human. To wander in this landscape of aliveness with fresh eyes and clear intention.

Morning Update

2011-09-03T04:09:00.000-07:00

A slight chill this morning – morning glories blossomed on the railing – the palest blue. They stand erect and still as if they are looking for something – a lost lover. Or like they heard something faintly in the distance and are great ears listening with breath held to hear some new urgency. Or as if the love held captive in the seed and the vines and the leaves could contain itself no longer and has been shot forth. Delicate membrane unfurled. Silky as the finest Parisian blouse – a raiment softer than the fairest skin.

Only for a few moments, my whole lifetime is lived. Too fragile to last – this membrane of love – made only for giving and receiving.

Now the blossoms quiver in the imperceptible breeze. Too fragile to last – like a human being – defenseless walking upright with this delicate skin membrane holding it all together – not at all sturdy - like a rock or a piece of dirt.

But I am sure they are listening – tuning into the deep hum of the universe. Their only job is to listen – to receive – which they do perfectly. The ear-like sails – radio wave collectors – more powerful than the sonic telescopes lined up in the desert waiting to hear news of other life in far away places – to listen to ‘see’ what is beyond what we know. This place where listening and seeing are not separate.

And what IT is is not determined by what it is, but by that which receives. The softest blue is just a dance happening between the shaking fragility of these blossoms and the intricacy of the electro-magnetic impulses I call myself.

Our astonishing dance of intimacy this morning.

Maybe Just One Is Enough

2011-08-02T03:34:00.000-07:00

The morning glories that gloriously bloomed through most of the summer have not returned. In the spring, my intention was to repeat last year’s success. I followed the same steps – but decided to try some new colors. But May was so cold that the first seedlings I set out didn’t survive. But new seedlings sprouted quickly and eventually the plants began to grow with vigor.

Now in early August, the jute strings rising to the pergola are hidden in the tangle of the generously lobed leaves. The tendrils—having long since risen to the top—keep rising and fall to the sides. They twist and turn like puppies chasing each other for the sheer joy of the play. Arcing gracefully, they spray carelessly away from the support—into midair.

And today, the second blossom of the season appeared. Of course, it is a delicate miracle of blue. I do my best to appreciate it - to greet it with appropriate approbation and gratitude. But mostly my mind runs to questions. ‘Where are your brothers and sisters? Did I feed you too much or not enough? How have I failed as a parent? How could you disappoint me like this?’ These silly questions make appreciation difficult but seem to rise up unbidden from some endlessly deep well of dissatisfaction.

Meanwhile, in a pot on a nearby table, brilliant blossoms of crimson impatiens wiggle slightly in the morning breeze. They care not a fig for my fancy speculating, but call wordlessly with the endless song of beauty and perfect sufficiency. And I look over once again to the single morning glory blossom and think: ‘Maybe just one is enough.’

Nasturtiums and Crabgrass

2011-07-17T05:37:00.000-07:00

A cool breeze blows across the Temple grounds. This morning quiet will soon be filled with voices and bodies as we’re having a work-day to prepare for our upcoming sesshin. Earlier, the neighbors walked by as I was weeding one of the front gardens. We greet each other warmly and talk about the weather. They are wonderfully nice people, but we’ve only talked to them four or five times in the two years we’ve been here. The Temple is like that – somehow private even in the midst of the city.

But it’s the crabgrass I’m thinking about this morning. Over the past week I’ve pulled out grand patches of it from the mulched areas around the rhododendrons in the front and still it keeps coming back. I admire its easy tenacity and appreciate how it has filled in the bare patches in our nearby lawn. Each tuft I pull this morning from among the brightly colored nasturtiums comes up with white threaded roots clinging gently to bits of mulch. A shake or two and most is given back and I throw the slender green shoots into my weed bucket.

I feel quite productive when I’m weeding. Aside from the fact that it’s an unending task, I find a gentle satisfaction in clearing the space. I still don’t know how things grow – these trailing nasturtiums were round pea-like seeds and now manifest as crimson, orange, and golden flowers lurking amongst the pleasingly shaped round leaves. They seem to wander randomly from the root stem, as if they were out to escape the inertial pull of their beginnings. But I do sometimes know how to clear space – how to make room for what is yet to come.

I suppose this is what our meditation is about – clearing some space in the busyness of our lives to allow the aliveness of the moment to reveal itself. We can’t command it, but we can create conditions that seem to allow it to be known. Sitting still and following the breath, sometimes the clutter of the mind fades away and some enormously shy presence allows itself to be seen.

But too much talk of these grand concepts is like trying to tell the nasturtiums how to grow those delicate and tasty flowers. They already know. So I remind myself to appreciate the necessary little bit I am given to do and I go back to pulling the crab grass.

Temple Gardens

2011-05-08T04:56:00.000-07:00

I’m in love with the Temple gardens again. It took me a while to find my way back in this spring. Being so caught up in the procession of retreats and ceremonies here at the Temple, I’ve only recently taken up my morning wanderings again. I set out the back door with as little intention as possible. Following my feet and remembering not to work, I am filled – heart and mind – with the subtle thrill green activity.

This slow garden saunter is the true pleasure of gardening. These gardens of our lives are never finished. Always weeds to pull, plants to rearrange, new spaces to create. Walking at leisure, I allow the ideas of the future to be part of the pleasure of this moment. The only true place of appreciation is in the middle of it all – joining in as part of the endless arising and falling away. In this perpetual becomingness each blossom is separate and complete while only arising in the full support of the earth and the sky and the sun and the stars.

I willingly take my place as the slowest one in the garden. I am the younger brother tagging along with his beautiful older sister. Hopelessly in love, I am happy just to be in her presence though I only dimly understand the necessities of her world. But the garden is patient with me – not demanding any more than I give – but meeting me joyously wherever I show up. The bricks on the path rise precisely to meet my foot with each step. The shape and hue of each thing gives itself with abandon to the heart of my senses – with no effort – as if it were not a miracle – as if it were just a wooden bench in the morning sun. Such a clever disguise for God. Who would have thought that she was here all along?

Momentary Patience

2011-04-28T08:25:00.000-07:00

Buddha sits patiently
while the weeping cherry
blooms momentarily
in the early spring.

More Rain

2011-04-26T07:36:00.000-07:00

The spring rain falls

cold and life-giving.

Joining with it

I tumble down the mountain

toward home.

Getting Down To Business

2011-04-13T03:25:00.001-07:00

The seeds I put into peat pots last week have sprouted. The tiny dry brown flakes and little roundish bits of nothing have produced bits of tender green waving about on the slenderest of stalks. To really look at what has happened from any kind of reasonable perspective is to witness the utterly preposterous. But my mother taught me to plant gardens and watch closely. I expected this all along. And still, I’m unreasonably astonished and delighted.

Each time I pass the glare of the grow light in my office, I pause to greet the tiny fellows lined up in their trays. Each one is clearly committed to its path toward a summer exposition of beauty.

I pause and smile to myself. Here it is - the unspeakable – the grandeur of God – the one true way. Right under my nose all the time. At last, I can call off the search and get down to business. I go into the kitchen and make a cup of tea.

A Sense of Things to Come

2011-02-18T03:50:00.000-08:00

In the early morning dark I sneak outside for a few minutes after I make my tea. It’s been a night above freezing for the first time in months and the damp coolness in the air feels alive to me. Standing out on the porch swinging my arms in random directions, my body remembers spring – the dirt and possibility lying silently beneath the seasons accretion of snow.

Yesterday, it was nearly 60 and I spent part of my day digging in the snow bank that the plow has pushed up against the Temple. My intention was to create a channel away from the foundation for the melting snow water to follow. It wasn’t strictly necessary – a good idea – but no water in the basement yet. Preventative. Prophylactic. But mostly for me. To be outside – to be pushing the world around. A shovel full of snow thrown out over the parking lot to melt. A careful channel of water through the ice and snow.

When I was young and it rained really hard in the summer, the water would come down the gutters of our suburban street in torrents. My mother let us – I suspect even encouraged us – to play outside. Or was it that we were out playing and got drenched before we could get home and asked if we could stay outside? Either way we ended up totally wet. Then, fearless of the rain, we walked up the street –delighting in the our freedom and wetness.

I do want to be included in this world - to escape this persistent dream of separation. I want to wait for spring sprouting with the dignified patience of the bare trees. But mostly these days I feel like an impatient sapling – dancing quickly in the breezes like a squirmy child: ‘Are we there yet? Is the winter over yet? How much longer?’

Enough Is Not Enough

2011-01-27T08:58:00.000-08:00

Schools are closed again today. Even long-time New Englander’s are beginning to complain about the white stuff. A headline in the Boston Globe reports ‘city officials’ as saying ‘Enough is Enough.’ Apparently this is not true. Enough is not enough.

Here at the Temple, our parking lot is growing smaller with each successive snowfall – the snow banks higher and thicker. Soon we’ll have a walled parking lot – maybe it will become a secret garden – we’ll keep it a private place that only certain people can find their way into. And perhaps inside, the season will change – the falling snow will become a soft mist that the morning sun will burn off. And we’ll all take our jackets off – though we won’t let anyone know. We’ll take off our jackets and maybe even our shirts – to dance slowly in the warm sun. We’ll dance with the sweet currents of energy. Sometimes we’ll even fly – become birds and fly though the sky with a wild freedom. Ahhhhh – that’s better.

But this morning, there is freedom and grace of snow shoveling and snow blowing to be done. Bundle up, start the engine, make a lot of noise and do some real work. As I head out, I hear the voice of a friend’s father – now confined to bed and near death. He was sorry to be lying in bed, was sad to not be out shoveling. So I remember to be grateful for this body that still has the energy and strength to rise out of bed and to go play outside, I’ll get my morning exercise clearing moving the white stuff from here to there.

New Year's Vow

2011-01-02T05:27:00.000-08:00

This year, I am determined to be more unproductive. My goal is to do less and less – to move slower and slower until everything stops. I and the whole world will come to a sweet and silent stillness. And in this stillness, a great shout of joy will arise. We will all be free – free from the advice of ancient ages, free from the whining voices, free from the incessant objections of the responsible ones.

In this new world, it will be abundantly clear that the bare branches of the winter trees are our teachers. In their daily dance of moving here and there, we will see once again the true meaning of our life. In the wind song of their being, we will hear God’s unmistakable voice. We will follow what appears before us - what had once been difficult will now unfold with ease.

*Ox and Window by Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku, 1685-1768

Morning Walk with the Moon

2010-12-22T03:57:00.000-08:00

The full moon waited overnight for me. She called to me through the east window as I went to bed last night, but I pretended I didn’t really hear. But this morning, my internal mother joins in the call and I am roused out of the house in the early morning darkness. Her cold beauty now floats in the western sky. I turn and walk toward the light.

The morning is cold, but I have the hat I bought thirty years ago at an EMS store on the second floor of the now, I am sure, defunct Hartford Mall. We call it my duck hunting hat. Pale green with a visor, ear flaps and fuzzy inside, it’s the kind of classic that remains out of style throughout the decades. But I am devoted to its unconditional warmth and consistent refusal to bend to convention.

The moon sticks firmly in the black of the lower sky – unbothered by the headlights of the few early morning cars headed in to work. I walk by the darkened church whose billboard instructs me to wait for Lord Jesus and eventually come to the never-ending lights of the 24-hour convenience store that rests directly under the moon. I buy one quart of whole milk and some half-and-half, though I know I should buy only fat free milk. I walk home.

Though the light has not yet come, I know this day will not be shorter than yesterday. We have crossed a timeless threshold. The ancient cells in my body rejoice. Perhaps we have not been abandoned to the darkness. Perhaps God will send the light and not let us perish in this cold.

I know that longer days and more sunlight come long before the warmth, but I am somehow buoyed by it all. For the short green amaryllis bud in the pot on my desk and for me too, something is stirring.

Just Drinking Coffee

2010-11-27T05:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning, I used the birthday money my mother sent me to buy a pottery mug at the Worcester Center for Crafts annual fair. The mug is amazingly beautiful and cost an unreasonable amount. The marks of flame and ash from its wood-fired origins are the natural decoration on this smallish drinking vessel. The cup itself was pushed in as the handle was attached, so the sweet memory of soft wet clay lingers with the finished piece. The handle itself is elegant, chunky and reliable.

I paid a wild forty dollars for the mug and probably wouldn’t have done it with ‘my own’ money. But as a birthday extravagance, I could justify the purchase. Having been a professional potter many years ago, I suspect that the maker of my mug works long days, both in the making and in the selling of his creations. And if his annual net is thirty thousand a year, I’m sure he considers himself quite successful.

Later in the day, I went to my local Ace Hardware store to buy a replacement halogen bulb for one of the space-age light fixtures that fly in the Temple kitchen. Ace is the chain store that drove the previous locally owned hardware store with wooden floors and guys who knew how to fix things out of business ten years ago. They often have great bargains because now they are hanging on for their economic life due to the Home Depot that recently opened just a few miles away.

On the way out, in the center aisle, which is the seasonal bargain display, I saw a four-cup coffee maker along with the snow shovels and window scrapers. I have been half-heartedly looking for a small coffee maker ever since I gave away our old one to my father last Father’s Day when he was passing through town on a RV camping trip and had forgotten his coffee maker. So I checked the price on the coffee maker, and when I saw it was an amazing nine dollars, I scooped one up -- along with my tiny, don’t touch with your fingers, seven-dollar halogen bulb.

Later this morning, I will go into the kitchen, turn on my seven-dollar light bulb, make ten-dollar a pound dark roast coffee in my nine-dollar coffee maker, and then drink a small cup of Joe in my forty-dollar mug.

This all makes me conscious of the invisible webs of relationships I support as I live my economic life. I know who made the mug, he lives in Maine and I am happy to share some of the money that people give me with him. The people who made the parts and assembled the coffee maker and packed it and put it on the trucks and put it in the center aisle of Ace Hardware are more hidden from my imagination – I suspect most of them, like the potter, would be happy to make thirty thousand a year. I feel virtuous about supporting the potter (even though it was my mother’s money). And while I am happy to save money on my new coffee maker, I feel vaguely uneasy about the relationships I foster with my frugality.

Considering the Falling Leaves

2010-11-10T07:25:00.000-08:00

Here in New England, the days have grown quite short now. And just the other day we had our first wet snow of the season. The nasturtiums that grew riotously over the slope behind the pergola now lie flat – victims of the hard frost a couple days ago. The marigolds too, once bushy and covered with flashy orange blossoms, are brown and wilted. Only the carcasses of tomato plants still stand erect. The stakes and cages that once kindly held the weight of their fruit are now superfluous and seem almost cruel.

Only the giant beech tree by the road seems to have missed God’s seasonal memo on the timeliness of letting go. She stubbornly grips her green leaves, even while her partner, the majestic oak has dropped his leaves at her feet. She studiously ignores his entreaties and holds fast to her own sense of things. But even for her, it won’t be long.

This fall, though I have continued to love the endless falling of the leaves, I have been thinking more about the finality of the activity. Of course it’s part of the cycle and I know these same trees will sprout new and amazing leaves in the spring. But for the leaves that fall, this leaf identity, this leaf-life, is nearly over. They won’t jump up in the spring and say ‘just kidding’ and find their way back to the branches from which they fell. They’re not migrating birds who miraculously find their way back to their birth place.

In the midst of the cycle of the seasons, of light and dark, of life and death – there is also this one-way movement. The job of the fallen leaves is not to rise up but to fall further apart – until there is nothing leaf-like that remains. I rake them onto tarps and drag them ceremoniously to the six-foot pile by the back fence to await their dissolution. Some day in the spring, several years from now, I will spread the humus of their remains back over the garden. Or perhaps someone else will be doing that work by then.

I don’t mean to be morbid, but this dying business is not merely poetic. It feels important this morning to find my way into both the closing of the season that only precedes next spring’s opening – as well as into that which is fully lost - the parts and pieces of life that only throw themselves forward into the future through completely dissolving. I know that I too, in the midst of the cycles of the days and the seasons of my life, am slowly being called toward this dissolution.

My New Friends

2010-11-04T03:50:00.000-07:00

Last night I went into Boston to hear my potential future son-in-law – or perhaps I should say my current ‘son-in-law,’ Kevin, give a talk at Harvard Med School. He’s a graduate student in immunology as was speaking as part of a series by a student run organization called ‘Science in the News.’ The topic last night was explaining some of how microbes (bacteria) function in our bodies.

I learned:

My body contains more bacteria than the number of people on earth. Though if you scraped them off my skin and collected them from all the surfaces within and without of me, their total mass would amount to only about five pounds, they outnumber the actual cells of my body. The densest concentration of these microbes is in my large intestine. This is where, I learned, food stays for an average of three days as these microbes work to break down what the rest of my digestive system couldn’t. There are so many different microbes that have such interdependent functioning in the large intestine that we don’t even know all of what is there. Many of these microbes are essential to our well-being where they are, but could kill us if they travel to other parts of the body. Some are so secretive that even scientists in their white lab coats can't culture them outside the body.

I’m fascinated by all these parts of me that aren’t me. These microbes are like independent contractors that have their own agenda. I can’t order them around and I can’t survive without them. On the bright side, I am the whole world to them. But on the down side, I am just a food source, just a place to live. As long as the nutrients keep on coming and I stay away from powerful anti-biotics, they are content to go about their microbial way and I should be grateful.

So this morning as I go put the trash out, I have just a little more respect for the miracle of my large intestine – ‘the densest concentration of microbial variety on earth.’ I think I’ll start eating yogurt regularly as my way of saying thank you to all my unknown friends and allies down there.

(for more fascinating microbial information and links to the talks – visit Kevin’s blog http://scienceblogs.com/webeasties )

When No One Is Looking

2010-10-25T10:54:00.000-07:00

I light a small stick of incense and step into the fine mist that hangs in the morning darkness of the Temple steps. It’s a ritual now, when I return from a trip, to offer incense to the big Buddha. I’m just back late last night from leading a three-day retreat with Rev’s Jay and Karen Weik and the Toledo Zen Center. Out in their farmhouse zendo in the country, we sat under the big sky and appreciated the harvest moon which illuminated our nights.

But this morning, I offer incense to the big Buddha that presides over the entrance to the Temple. He doesn’t seem to mind about all my comings and goings. I ask him if he thinks I am too busy – whether I should slow down and do less. He doesn’t say yes and he doesn’t say no. The cars rush by on Pleasant Street and the air is moist against my cheek.

During my absence, the little pumpkin that was in front of the Buddha by the incense holder has made its way into the begging bowl the Buddha holds in his lap. I imagine him reaching down one silent stone arm in the middle of the night – or even in broad daylight when no one was looking. Reaching down with gentle slow-moving fingers to pick up this fleshy orange fruit for his bowl. But then I think that if big Buddha is operating in the deep time of his native granite, the little pumpkin which is so solid to me, must be nearly invisible to him as it flashes into being and disappears again. In that case, only his great powers of subtle awareness allow him to see the momentary reality of something so transient as a pumpkin – or a human being.

I suppose I am more like the pumpkin than the crushed stone that lies under the Buddha. More like the leaves on his lap [did he go walking quietly around the grounds collecting his favorite colored fall leaves or did the trees drop them there purposefully?] than the mountain of granite out of which he was carved. My hopping around here and there is just part of my coming and going nature. But when no one is looking, I sit very still in the middle of the incessant movement of my life. I am private and invisible. Just as he, when no one is looking, has adventures we can only begin to dream of.

Smelling and Choosing

2010-10-13T03:50:00.000-07:00

I like to wake up early enough to walk through the darkened house. My eyes appreciate the slow transition. The street light falls through the windows and illuminates dependable patterns on the walls and the floor. In the dim light my other senses awaken too. I hear each room humming its own particular song – a performance piece that I am apparently part of as the soft shuffle of my rubber Crocs on the wooden floors bounces off wooden floors and sundry objects of furniture. And this morning, I notice for the first time that each room and hallway has its own particular smell. I’m reminded of a college roommate who insisted he could tell from smelling the skin of my arm, whether I had spent the day inside or outside. At the time I was doubtful as I suspected he just wanted to smell my skin. Looking back, I see it was both.

Both – it’s usually both. While we sometimes agonize over finding the one right answer – weighing the pros and cons of a decision, it may be that the true answer is both and either. Like me, several years ago when I was riding my mountain bike through the beautiful New England woods. It was about this time of year, leaves were just beginning to show orange and yellow. The sky was clear and high. I was riding over a new trail a friend had shown me the week before. I remembered the trail until I came to the first fork. I wasn’t sure whether to take the right or the left path. After a moment, the left fork looked familiar so I headed down that path. I was relieved to soon see familiar scenery and realize I had made the right choice. I recall feeling a lovely little sense of pride in my intuition and in making the ‘right’ choice. There were several more unremembered forks, but each time my intuition led me down the path that continued on.

It was only several weeks later, after I had ridden those trails three or four more times, that I realized that the two trails at these forks BOTH merged back to the main trail and that at each fork, either trail would do. My real success was not guessing the correct trail, but rather taking any trail. Both were the right trail.

Now, of course there are forks in our lives where the two trails apparently lead to spectacularly different places. There are alternatives we are faced with that pose choices of radically different futures. But more and more I suspect that there is no one choice that is correct – that both futures – that the myriad choices all lead to our life. The most important thing is the choosing. The choosing allows us to move forward and to learn and grow and become ourselves.

Beginning Again

2010-10-10T06:06:00.001-07:00

For the past three years, I have been occasionally referring, in this blog, to my writing of ‘the book.’ The book where I write about the things I talk about all the time. The book about Zen and life-coaching. I wrote the outline, got an advance from a publisher, and have written endless pages. But I have struggled to write about what I know in a way that is truly alive.

For me, the challenge has been how to present the living truth that does not abide in some fixed form – that is not about rules or dogma and things outside of ourselves. And the even greater issue of how to avoid writing from the illusory position of having figured it all out. I have often despaired of finding a form and a voice that felt true.

While I have written much, I have been dogged by a feeling of failure. Even the twelfth revision of Chapter One felt stiff and clunky – like someone who is working hard to write something good for the teacher. But about two months ago, I came to the realization that while I have been ‘stuck’ not writing my book, I have also been writing my book – I just didn’t know it. In these pages and in my journals, I have found a voice and a way of writing that feels honest and true.

I’m not sure of the ultimate ‘quality’ of the writing or exactly how it coheres into a book. But I have accepted the fact that the book I need to write, the book I have written, is a book that is my love song to the world. Not an explanation or a ‘how-to’ manual, but rather a stepping into and a presentation my own life as the way itself. As Issa said so beautifully ‘The man pulling radishes / pointed my way /with a radish.’

So now I have the first draft of my book complete. The working title is now ‘Zen Reflections of a Life Coach: Each Step is the Destination.’ Right now it is a series of short pieces loosely tied into the cycle of one year of my life. It contains a number of the pieces that first appeared in this blog. As part of this process, I have cleared the memory here in this blog – taken these pieces down from the web to be revised, cooked, polished, winnowed or even left as is for parts of the book.

I will continue my sporadic postings and greatly appreciate the kind occasional words that come back to me in my travels. All you who have remarked on being touched by something here. Your small encouragements have been, and continue to be, essential as I walk the ever unknown path of my life.