Sunday, November 26, 2006

A party of two wanderers....


(A picture of Milford Sound, New Zealand, 2002...one of my favorite pictures!)
A friend of ours learned of the death of a very close friend in Amsterdam on Wednesday. He had been very close to the man and his partner and had spent a lot of time with them, first as a student studying art in Amsterdam and then a long many years of visiting them for extended weekends. They shared many interests together and the friendship grew and grew.
Parting is never easy and this morning as I was flipping through Japanese poetry books, as I'll be visiting the country in February, I came upon an old copy of Basho's The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches. I love the lines of his starting the journey with a friend:
We celebrated our start by scribbling on our hats 'Nowhere in this wide universe have we a fixed abode----A party of two wanderers.'
And then at the end, very movingly written, when the time comes to part:
I felt deeply in my heart both the sorrow of one that goes and the grief of one that remains, just as a solitary bird separated from its flock in dark clouds, and wrote in answer:
From this day forth
The dew-drops shall wash away
The letters on my hat
Saying 'A party of two'.
Basho also mentions illness and our friend's friend, who we met a few times, suffered a very painful illness of liver cancer, but continued to stay "bright":
Sick, on a journey
Yet over withered fields
Dreams wander on.
Somehow the words at the end of the journey are very sad and one can feel what it is like to be the lost bird in dark clouds...but somehow there is a light shining through these words, there is a going on and a few poems later, comes:
As firmly cemented clam-shells
Fall apart in autumn,
So I must take to the road again,
Farewell, my friends.
So, we all must say goodbye and continue on...like the clouds taken by the wind, like the clam shells that have fallen apart.
The last book I flipped through was Zen Poems of China and Japan: The Crane's Bill. It's a very old, tattered paperback I've had since university and as I opened it there was a poem from Dogen:
Four and fifty years
I've hung the sky with stars.
Now I leap through---
What shattering!
May we all do the same as we live---hang the sky with stars and when the time comes:
LEAP!
May Walter have lept through his collection of stars!

Friday, November 24, 2006

"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood"

Those are wonderful lines from Marie Curie that I just read today. I have suffered from fear for a very long time in life. I grew up in a family where I never knew what emotion was going to explode or be used at any moment. I was also a victim of sexual abuse, so I remember as a child sometimes just cowering inside with fear...although on the outside I played the "tough guy"! I notice, still, that fear can have such a strong hand over how I think...what will happen in the future, what will happen with this action, did I do all I could, etc.... But what is so imporant here is that "it is only something that needs to be understood"---and then let go of. Though I'm talking about what happened to me in the past, just this year I was able to really let it go. My parnter and I visited my parents, and I was really able to stay open and loving. Everything was transformed...there was no fear, no anger...this was an example of "leaping beyond fear!" And as one of the scriptures says in the Soto Tradition: OM TO THE ONE WHO LEAPS BEYOND ALL FEAR! I'm not there yet, but I'm ready to leap...soon, someday WITHOUT FEAR!

Monday, November 20, 2006

No matter how big of a mess...



Yesterday we had friends over for a Thanksgiving meal. Being from Germany, they had never experienced Thanksgiving food before and what an experience they had! We started making some of the dishes on Friday and finished Sunday evening at 6 p.m.. We hadsweet potatoes with walnuts stewed in honey, maple syrup and a sherry vinegar, mashed potatoes with goat cheese and sage, dressing, green beans with roasted shallots and fennel and of course cranberries homemade. It was a lovely evening and our friends stayed until late. Then when they had left, we were tired and left much of what needed to be cleaned for this morning. My partner loaded the dishwasher once and did tidying up before he left for work, but as I had my first cup of coffe this morning...all I could see was a "mess that would never be cleaned up"! That's how I felt anyway and then I reflected on how that seems to be with my karma...I've done so many things and continue to do them...how can I ever get it cleaned up?!

Then, a smile rose, I just have to do it bit by bit. So, this morning between meditation and writing, I simply worked on it bit by bit and it's almost cleaned up. Just a bit more this afternoon between writing and preparing lesson plans.

And what's nice is there are lots of leftovers...so no cooking perhaps for the next few days...and I guess leftovers can be seen like working on cleaning up karma...they are the good "things" left that nourish us and help us continue on our way!

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Bodhi Tree Update:

There in the center is the tiny, green sprout...enjoying a very sunny day in the window!

Wanting to help, but not being able to...

This is a picture that I keep on the shelf under the altar in our meditation room. It was drawn by my grandmother for me and it has so much meaning, especially because of how much she meant to me. But it also has another meaning. You see, my grandmother suffered from emphysema, and although this was a struggle for her, she lived a very long life into her 90's. However, the last two years of her life she lived in assisted living and sometimes she felt very closed in. So, on those days, she'd give me a call at work and we'd go for a drive...usually to a park or the botanic gardens in Denver or sometimes just going to the supermarket was fun for her. And, of course, for me as well.

However, one day she called and I could tell by her voice that she was really feeling closed in and sad. Many of the people she had first made friends with had passed away and it was not a day you could go outside walking. It was so hard for me because I was not able to leave work that day because of a meeting that was very important. I knew she understood, but I could still tell she was disappointed. I know she could tell by my voice that I felt guilty for not being able to help and I really struggled the rest of the day and through the meeting to keep my thoughts at work and what needed to be done. She had not created the guilt, I had.

What was so wonderful was that the very next day, in the mail came the picture you can see above. With it was the following poem:

Feel not remorse
At things undone,
As yet, they are to do!
You aren't a pigeon,
No wings have you,
And I understand.
With love,
Grandma R.
This is there on my altar to remind me of my grandmother and to offer merit to her whenever I can, but also to remind myself: sometimes we cannot help even though we want to and even though this is so, the love is always still there.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Bodhi Tree



Last September when I was at the Buddha House in Stuttgart, I saw they had a potted Bodhi Tree and I was really fascinated about how beautiful the leaves end in a long point. By chance, I happend to find an offering of Bodhi Tree (Ficus Religiosa) seeds and I sent away for them. You can see how tiny they are...amazing that they will grow to such large trees! I planted them carefully and placed them in a nice warm spot. Then I began to wait and wait and wait...each day checking to make sure it was warm and damp enough.
Today, on a very wet and grey November day, I looked into the pot and there was one tiny little sprout! How wonderful to see! It is too small for a picture, but as soon as the sprout grows so more, I'll be adding its picture and maybe someday a picture of a small planted tree. A Bodhi Tree...a relative of the tree under which the Buddha was enlightened!