Buddhist Fashion: Naked, Direct & Fearless

A week later Reggie Ray's talk is still rolling around like a little patchinko ball in my head. I am drawn deeply to that aspect of practice that encourages us to look inside for our direction, to have faith and trust our own inner whisperings. Something inside us knows "what is it good to do now". We don't need to read another book or hear another Dharma talk or make a 5 year plan. We come equipped with everything we need for our training, the koans & the map for exploring them.

I am interested in tuning my ear to the "still, small voice within " which is most often shouted down and ridiculed by the rather loud and overbearing voice of logic and reason. Not that the "thinking mind" is bad but I love RM Jiyu Kennett's comment that "the mind makes a good servant but not a very good master." This goes against the mainstream western view of the world, the world of the expert, the material world of science and stuff.

And while I am drawn to this world of mystery and intuition, it is not my customary stomping ground. I am a stranger in this land, a new comer to these parts. I have cast a disparaging, raised eyebrow on this landscape in the past, dismissing it as the vacation land of new agers and airy fairy folk.

Ray also talked about how as hunter/gatherers, humans were deeply connected to the natural world and that with the advent of agriculture that relationship gradually weakened. It is also interesting to note that nutritional anthropologists mark the advent of agriculture as the starting point of chronic disease in humans. Disease of body and mind; are they connected? Today we not only find ourselves disconnected and disrespectful (my word) of the natural world but Ray comments that we are disembodied. We live mostly in our heads. He is not romanticizing or wishing for a return to the short and difficult life of hunter/gatherers but rather wondering if we might learn to relate to our inner and outer landscape in a more respectful and caring way.

These are the aspects of training that call to me strongly at this time, that make sense at a deep level. Last night I picked up my copy of Ray's book, "Touching Enlightenment: Finding Realization in the Body". I will leave you with this quote from it : "Buddhism, in its most subtle and sophisticated expression, is not a tradition that seeks to provide answers to life's questions or to dispense "wisdom" to allay our fundamental angst. Rather, it challenges us to look beyond any and all answers that we may have found along the way, to meet ourselves in a naked, direct, and fearless fashion."

Who Is That Tapping On My Cocoon?

Impermanence is very busy at my house. Impermanence is definitely pushing its way around at this address as furniture moves on to new homes, scads of papers get torn and recycled, boxes fill with belongings and give-aways.

This evening's round of drawer cleaning produced my mother's birth certificate, my parent's marriage certificate and both of their cremation certificates. And there it was, in a bottom drawer, the tangible leftovers of a life, some letters and papers, bits of pressed, inked fibre. A little sad, a little tug at the heart. And then the practical matters: snip up the plastic cards with scissors, tuck mementos into a folder.

And it seems in this state of getting ready to move I am more conscious of this movement, the flow of impermanence as it reaches its tentacles into all the nooks and crannies of the house and our lives. It is good to just be carried along with it. But I notice how sometimes I hang on to a rock on the shore or grab for a strand of seaweed, trying to slow down the swooshing of impermanence all around me.

And while my homeless friend has an intimate relationship with impermanence, what she has really taught me a lot about this week, is about listening to that "still, small voice" that each one of us has inside, that voice that can provide the direction, the voice we have such a hard time hearing with our doubting-thomas socks pulled up around our ears.

You see when I finally found her a potential place to park off the street, she didn't do a happy dance. She sat with it, consulted her pendulum and decided no, that wasn't the right option for her at this time. It was hard for me to imagine that she would not grasp at the first opportunity. But there she sat in all her dignity and composure, with a sense that she needed to follow some other options. She was so grateful for the offer and said all she really needed, the important part, was our support. She felt cared for and loved and supported by those of us who had come forward to offer help and that was what really mattered. And so we parted ways that day both feeling unattached to the outcomes and really enjoying each others loving presence. We agreed that we would talk next, when we needed to, that we each knew how to find the other.

Her fine example reminded me to slow down from the frantic busyness of getting things done and listen for "what is it good to do next?" I wish that someone so wise and full of teachings will come into your life. I wish that they will present you with interesting puzzles and predicaments and little hurdles to jump over as you run through the days of your life. I suspect they will come disguised in some interesting form, perhaps a bird with a broken wing, a lonely neighbour, a broken hearted co-worker. Will you hear it as your call to action, as a place to breathe life into the Dharma or will it be just another sad, depressing or slightly annoying event tapping at your cocoon.