A thousand joys and sorrows

Yunmen said, "Every day is a fine day." My old Zen teacher used to say that it was incorrect to ever evaluate a day as good or bad -- too many moments, all perfect in themselves. And yet we judge and complain and celebrate and enjoy. Beyond all judging is the lived moment, now perceived as happiness, now as grief. As Rumi says, "A thousand joys and sorrows."

Yesterday I awaken to disappointing election news, and later, hear that Haiti has had another major aftershock. And as the work day ends, a co-worker tells me that one of her former students has killed herself. Saying good-bye to my boss, I say "what a day!" He replies, "yes! So wonderful!" "What?" I say, and repeat my string of bad news. "Oh" he says. "I was thinking of the successful program we ran today (...a lecture that attracted 40 people, with a terrific visiting researcher who engaged us all.) The energy of the office was so high today." And then he pauses, and sees my surprised face. "Ah," he says. And we both smile at each other. And he adds, "a thousand joys and sorrows."

apart and a part

Phillip Hallie on Albert Camus: "Two French words summarize the mood (for it is a mood and not a philosophic system) that Camus expresses in his writings and in his life and death. The words are solidaire and solitaire. Only one consonant separates the two words from each other, but the difference between aloneness and union is immense. We are born into separateness: then, after a while, we die into it; and, in between our birth and our death, we are strangers and afraid in a world we never made. And yet we feel solidarity with others, love, from time to time,. We live out our lives apart from others and as a part of others."

waiting for the miracle

The Temple is very quiet today, and clean and empty. Leonard Cohen's words echo in my mind: we are waiting for the miracle to come. In a few hours, over 40 people will be arriving, getting settled, and then diving into the silence and stillness of sesshin. I feel so lucky that I can participate in this miracle -- the unusual opportunity, with other like-minded Dharma friends, to realize the truth of what it means to be a human being.

ungrateful

Some new research on healthy marriages suggests that spouses who express their gratitude to each other have a better chance of staying married. The connection between them is nourished by truly seeing and commenting on the other's loving acts. Intimate connection can also go beyond gratitude. The implication of this is expressed in case 17, from the Gateless Gate collection of koans, where Chung Kuo-shih calls to his attendant three times, and is answered three times. Kuo-shih says, "I was about to say that I was ungrateful to you. But the fact is that you are ungrateful to me." I myself am so grateful for this expression. Thank you Chung Kuo-shih!

a drop of ink

An old friend just reminded me of something I said to her many years ago and I was happy to be reminded. It's an image I use when I'm confronted by suffering -- my own or someone else's.

I imagine that whatever is causing the suffering -- physical pain, a thought or an emotion, someone's behavior or our own actions -- is like a drop of ink. When the ink is dropped into a cup, it colors the water. When it's dropped into a big bowl, it becomes dispersed, and the water turns gray. When it drops into the ocean, there's no color left at all.

This is an important part of our work in becoming human beings who are free and useful -- to create a spacious container for our suffering -- to be open and present to whatever is here, and to everything else that is not the suffering.

Sometimes we contract -- it's human nature, and it's not a bad thing. Sometimes we expand, and that's not a bad thing either. Rumi speaks about this in his poem "Birdwings" as translated by Coleman Barks:

Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror
Up to where you're bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
Here's the joyful face you've been waiting to see.

Your hand opens and close and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
You would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small
Contracting and expanding,
The two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
As birdwings.

the dosage for happiness

Lately I've been notice just how darn happy I am. I don't mean that I'm blissed out all the time, or even cheerful. There's just a very deep sense of contentment that seems to be patiently waiting for any temporary emotional, cognitive or physical storms to subside. I have a few theories about why this may be happening. For one thing, I'm thrilled with my work at the Center at the University, and my new life at the Temple. Everything right now seems to be revolving mostly about around what t I love. Next to my husband and daughter, and along with some dear friends and my brother, what I love the most in this lucky lifetime is practicing and teaching meditation. And I'm getting to do a lot of that. Another theory is that meditating so much (daily sittings at the Temple plus a few evenings and other times throughout the day) contributes to happiness, as so many researchers into meditation have been speculating and wondering about. (One of my favorite words related to mindfulness research is "dosage" -- how much time on the cushion creates a measurable effect in what-have-you: mood, health, behavior...) And I must say that I know well, based on what I know about human life, that the reality of all this is that at any moment, this lovely contentment could be altered by some significant personal or global event. But I'm beginning to suspect that even this potential tragedy wouldn't destroy the underlying awareness of something sweetly pleasant that lies just beneath the surface of our lives, waiting for us all.

It's dark outside

This morning I had a conversation with a student about a much beloved koan. In the story, Deshan, who would later become a great master, is still young and somewhat confused (and we might even say arrogant.) At one point, as he's leaving Lungtan, the teacher he has just encountered, he looks outside and sees that night has fallen. "It's dark outside," he says. Both of us had tears in our eyes as we reflected together on this poignant moment. A beautiful poem by Wendell Berry came to mind, which I first heard from a stress reduction student who was in remission from breast cancer. She told me that the poem helped her to allow her to be with her cancer just as it was -- the possibility of death, and the big "don't know" of her life. It was dark in her life, but she found that simply being in the dark was enough. No need to make up anything, no need to know more than she could know.

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark.
Go without sight.
And find that the dark, too, blooms and sings.
And is traveled by dark feet, and dark wings.