The study of self
requires a form of introspection
reserved for the details of one's life
be they matters small or great.

Getting a haircut for instance,
a small matter regularly completed
by men and women the world over.
Why give such a matter a second thought?

As with most every interesting question
it depends on whose hair is to be cut
in this instance, my own,
at present very long.

It has been most of two years
to bring my particular mop into existence.
I value it as did master Samson
before the lovely Delilah shorn him of it.

In my case it will be the damsel Rebekah
who will shear my shaggy growth
in the morning and of my choice.
Samson had no such choice, poor guy!

I have what I believe good reason
for my well considered decision.
It pertains to a question Master Dogen would approve:
Who am I trying to impress keeping my splendid locks?

It is a question I ask myself of matters great and small
during my days of self study
a study master Dogen advised his followers
should they wish to study the Buddha way.

Who am I trying to impress?
I have applied this interrogatory 
to any number of aspects of my life
finding it apt to ferret out answers.

Who, I asked myself, am I trying to impress
in keeping and with difficulty maintaining
these hard won strands that I find 
over all my floor and every fiber of my clothing?

The answer is that I've deluded myself 
believing that someone, no matter who,
is very much impressed by my tresses.
Therefore have I kept the tedious growth.

Answering in the affirmative, 
that anyone at all would be impressed,
is never the correct answer.
That anyone would be impressed is vanity!

The task set by Master Dogen is to study self
not study others and their thoughts
about how I dress act feel think or whether
I ought go about with a shaggy mop or a monk's tonsure.
 
There are no matters insignificant
when it comes to the study of self.
To study any matter pertaining to who I am
is to study the Buddha way.

so many years with someone to talk to
didn't have to make plans a week or two away
with someone who wasn't her
she was with me to talk of our days
even when there wasn't anything new to say
same thing all over again was alright
comforting in it's easy back and forth
keep me from going off on schemes

I didn't know how much I needed her
just to be there in the morning after work
I love my friends but often
they are gone after their own lives
and I can't blame them
keeps them from having to listen to me

I'm one who needs to talk things over
writing isn't enough not near enough
I can't write the way of chatting
how dull that would be to any reader even myself.
I don't like this being without someone
I'm trying to see through this time
but zen isn't any sort of answer
demanding mind or no mind or emptiness
sometimes I want to say (or write)
screw all that!
I'll try to remember to say that to my friends
who've thought I've gone all zen berserk!

Maybe I need to say or write it more than I have -
I miss her!
I don't just miss any someone but her
she who knew me from the years we were together
I can't say we were always the best couple
but I tried my best to love and care for her
and I won't say my best was good enough
not for her but I tried.
We saw each other at our best and worst
but isn't that the way of married life?
I'm sure there are perfectly loving couples out there
but we were not that couple 
we were together in many very good times with family and friends
and in a very few not so great times
but we were together for thirty-one years
these days that is saying something.

I miss you, dear!

"Who can step back doesn't worry
we blossom and fade like flowers
we gather and part like clouds"
Stonehouse (Shi-wu)*

I've stepped back
my mind needing stillness 
rarely stilled or quiet
beginning to be so

we blossom and fade like flowers
all who've been in my life
days together as blooms
many faded beyond memory

we gather and part like clouds
drifting away as together we came
dear ones dear loved 
faces lost in the intervening mist

time is a gathering place
where i may invite them all to return
sit with me in my room
help me to find my true self

*The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse, translation and commentary by Red Pine, poem #31, p.37, Copper Canyon Press, 2014.

Solitude is a mirror
revealing faces
some forgotten 
others never were
stories I've told

Solitude is a stage 
many actors 
playing roles they are not
complete credibility
to applause and laughter

Solitude is a blank wall 
seeing self 
thoughts passing by
images come and go
until the bell rings

Solitude is time
dawn to dusk
sleep and dream
early morning coffee
evening stillness

Solitude is a womb
living being
gathers strength to emerge
learns to breathe
stand alone.
 

streams of change
come together
during this quiet time
          
may all beings be at ease

they follow the way
unknown to them
carrying leaves along

may all beings be at ease

I am carried with them
every eddy and pool
no sense struggling 

may all beings be at ease

the hermit poets of Japan and China
satisfy a Zen aspiration in me
I cannot live so simply or remote 
I am not an old monastery monk
never held whisk or stick
what we share is Zen

of the sutras they are silent
monastery and rules left behind
living on mountains in huts they made
farming foraging to make their way
watching clouds pass streams flow
sitting cross-legged on rocks

I sit with a cup of coffee a glass of wine 
tapping away on electronic devices
all my needs well supplied
I could not be further from them
in space time culture
yet they draw me into their world

in common they stepped away
saw the Buddha within the Way clear
- seeking enlightenment a waste -
it was what they already possessed
to live what books or teachings 
overlay with obscurity and mystification 

their writings reveal Zen life
beyond talk theory philosophy speculation
beyond koans abstruse sutra logics
beyond Bodhidharma Dogen Lin-chi
realizing the Way they stopped searching
settled down with the mountains and clouds

it is a line that came to me
several writings ago -
solitude, caretaker of soul.
The more I live with solitude
experiencing it's healing touch
the more I believe it true.

Not everyone gets this time
long enough time 
to see the fruits.
I have this time now
choosing more, more
than I imaged when I stepped away.

Calm has come to me
I wish it to remain
when I reenter the world.
It is not so long
these six months
considering the long life
behind me
not knowing how long 
ahead.

I will enter summer
in solitude
long warm days and nights.
At summer's end
with family for a time -
Manzanita dunes and tides
to remember with them
their mother grandmother.

Six months end in October 
sesshin at Upaya, Sante Fe. 
It will be well to finish solitude 
one week in silence sitting.

this is home now
cold spring skies
woodpecker in the pine
marine layer mornings
all the lovely evenings.

Years working downtown
my cubicle window
watching ferries 
cross the Salish sea,
water mountains sky.

No way to remember 
all our memories here -
Carol and Tom.
Friends we knew are here still
with whom we shared life.
They remember her well
remain good to me.

I have new friends now,
for a time stepping away
not for loving them less
caring for her memory more.

Alone, I drink wine on my veranda 
remembering evenings.
We shared these moments
through the seasons.
Planning life now
I have no one like her to talk to
over a nice glass of wine
or other of the
libations that life offers.
Perhaps I need a spiritual director
or a wise zen teacher?
No. Those won't do. 
No one can replace a love
sitting side by side 
through the days and nights
together.




 

The self, "my self," takes pleasure
in this lovely spring evening.
__________________________________

My study of self consciously began
the day I stepped away from sangha
beginning a long overdue soul-searching
following my wife's death.

My time away is much needed
evidenced by things I've discovered
I might not have otherwise. 
This is no straight path
but one of trial and error.

Recently I began a list of my thinking habits
that "need careful study."
My list, however accurate or complete,
       (never accurate or complete)
is not helpful.
I trust Master Dogen 
did not mean for us to begin self-study lists
checking items off on completion.
In Fukanzazengi, due to the intimate nature of zazen, 
Dogen clarifies things advising,
"...take the backward step... illuminate the self."

What might the light of zazen reveal?
All my faults failures fears fantasies?
Those I can see by any ordinary light!
The light that illumines self 
must be able to penetrate to the deep dark
where it is most needed.
 
There is no gaining mind in zazen 
not because I tell myself to expect nothing
but because, even were I to try,
my thinking mind would be denied access
to the sublime sinuous pathways
of my ancient and twisted karma.
There's the rub - the dark of shadowy hidden regions
my thinking mind could not begin to comprehend. 

Zazen provides a sanctuary 
where only the enlightened mind can go -
probing deep, sending deft fingers to places
hurt unhealed scared and scarred,
resting in those places for a time 
taking them silently away when the bell sounds.

To study the Buddha Way is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be:

          *actualized by myriad things
          *confirmed by all dharmas
          *enlightened by the myriad dharmas
          *experienced by millions of things and phenomena
          *authenticated by the myriad things
          *enlightened by all things
          *verified by all things
          *perceive oneself as all things
                 (thezensite.com)

Translation is a tricky business
certainly when translating Dogen.
Eight translations of an essential point -
what it is to forget the self.
Do these all mean the same thing?
Do any accurately translate Dogen's intention?

I think we get to take our pick
the one that speaks to our heart.
For me, I go with the clunkiest one:
"...EXPERIENCED BY millions of things and phenomena."
The rest seem to leave self in place
as the actor whose studies 
have accomplished the thing. 
But to be experienced BY all things and phenomena
seems to me to be quite a different thing. 
To believe that all things cooperate 
in the experience of a sense life
that communicates with us 
is profound beyond measure 
but no more profound 
than our Bodhisattva vows.

My inspiration comes from Annie Dillard:

"Then one day I was walking along Tinker Creek thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with the lights in it. I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance."

I'll keep studying but while I do I'll remember Annie Dillard's experience and words, ones that have stayed with me for fifty years, since I first read and was stunned by her magnificent work, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. 

She gets the final word here:
"...I had been my whole life a bell and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck."

My photo of Tinker Creek, near Roanoke, Virginia.