Cable Beach, Rye, NH
Author and friend Matthew Cheney recently introduced me to one of my new favorite songs; “Change” by Big Thief. It talks about the dichotomies of desire we face, about the ceaseless movement of time and our choices.
“Change like the wind, like water, like skin… Would you live forever and never die? While everything around you passes? Would you smile forever and never cry? While everything you know passes?” It goes on: “Would you stare forever at the sun? Never watch the moon rising? Would you walk forever in the light? To never learn the secrets of a quiet night?” And in between it brings this up: “Death like a door to a place we’ve never been before. Death like space, the deep sea, a suitcase.”
I’ve been away for a while, back “home” lately. To the Shire. Sparkling lakes, emerald-jeweled-green forests. Clean, so clean, white picked fences, perfectly manicured lawns, planters of blooming flowers on the porch of every white Cape. Each year that I go back it seems as though it becomes more difficult to see the place as it actually is; it slips, misty with nostalgia more into the postcard-memory of it than the reality. Reminded by Adrienne Lenker’s song, I force myself to ask; would I stay forever in that memory and never change, to never see the subtle and vast movements of living around and within me? Would I paint those memories with only rose colors and not bring up the sharpness and darkness as well? If I do so I miss out on the secrets of the thing we call the-other-side-of-the-coin. Doing so would diminish the gifts of understanding, insight, feelings and my experience of having lived it.
Many Tibetan Buddhists teach their children from their earliest years to recite this daily; “It is my nature to grow old. It is my nature to become sick. It is my nature to be separated from those I love. It is my nature to die.” In our diseased Western culture of plastic-fantastic-forever that won’t fly. But these children, as time passes, accept these changes without anger, grief or surprise. Change is the reality of All. Everything else is filtered memory, nothing more.
Can we embrace change as the sole constant of being? As the only actual energy that there is? What, if anything, is not brought by change? Can we feel its flowing through us as water, as blood, as breath, as wind and as darkness and decay without seeking otherwise? This isn’t a discussion of the metaphysical existence or non-existence of time. This is here as it actually is happening to you now.
Perhaps the question we ought to ask ourselves is; “What will you give up to hold on to what you already know?”
This is only the first question.
What’s the next one?
~Deep peace & great love,
Issan* & Zenho
NOAH’S POEM
Sujata came to Siddhartha
As if in a dream
As he sat and strove
She welcomed each morning with him
And watched in
Simple Love
He did not need to penetrate the nature of Experience
To be greeted with cool milk in the morning
He did not have to strive and strive
And he did not have to love her back
He did not have to go upstream or downstream
Or follow his breath
Or crack the koan open open
Somedays he opened his eyes in
Anger
Somedays in hate
Somedays in fear
Somedays in hopelessness
Somedays in joy
And each morning the milk
Was of Love
And there was no special spice
And there was no special word
Or smile or wink
She would sit as he drank under the shade of a tree
And then he’d burp and she’d giggle
And she’d take the empty cup
And tread through the field to her home
SCHEDULE August 20-August 26
MONDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT THE TEAHOUSE, ANDY OPENING
MONDAY, 7PM, DREAM KOAN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM Drag your body to the Zendo, or Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81182899201?pwd=UVU4MnJhMG1ZUGJaOHhaSndwQ2dYQT09
TUESDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE, ANDY OPENING
WEDNESDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE, OR ZOOM
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89605039197?pwd=VTVubW5pUnBCNFBqQjBieERvNDd5QT09
THURSDAY, 6:30 AM, ZAZEN AT THE TEAHOUSE. DOKUSAN WITH ISSAN SENSEI
FRIDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN & SERVICE WITH ZENHO AT THE TEAHOUSE. DOKUSAN WITH ZENHO SENSEI
No Gate Zen Center 