Month: April 2019

There is a small, solitary clump of orange tulips in my side garden. There are now six remaining blooms that remind me of my internal struggle with my churning racism. I don’t think my tulips expected to play such a role.

It began as I sat on my deck, putting on my gardening shoes. A yellow school bus pulled up along my boulevard garden, and three young boys bounced out into the garden, followed by the adult woman bus driver. I was vaguely aware of them, and only mildly irked that they were walking on the plants obviously growing in the garden.

What caught my attention were the words “pick flowers” coming from one of the boys. I jumped to my feet and shouted “Hey” as soon as I reached the edge of the deck and I saw that one of the boys was up in my garden with a strangle hold on a tulip. All the while the woman was standing near the bus, not paying attention to what the boys were doing. She seemed unconcerned about the boys having announced their intention to “pick flowers.” She made no response to their picking flowers.

What followed was an unconnected exchange of her shouting to the boys to get back on the bus, my trying to tell the boys that if they pick the flowers no one else can enjoy them. I pointed out to her that they were walking through my garden as they got back on the bus. She told me what a rough day she had had and that she never has parked in that spot before. I’m not sure there was a single thread of continuity in our change.

I found myself muttering to myself about the great cultural divide between white and black people, and wondering if it will ever be overcome. I was mostly disturbed, not by the behavior of the three boys, but by the woman’s apparent indifference to what they were doing. She could only respond to their getting in trouble, and totally ignored what was a latent teachable moment.

For me, it was an experience that emphasized the cultural difference between some black people and some of us white people. I wondered how many generations it will take to bridge our differences.

I simply cannot imagine a white woman walking down the sidewalk with three young boys and her not intervening if they announced their intent to “pick flowers”. I simply cannot imagine a white woman disinterestedly standing by while they climbed up the hill and began tugging at tulips. I can now easily imagine a black woman being that disinterested and that disengaged.

My imagination has been fed by a concrete experience, and now my racism has another issue to deal with. My remaining tulips seem mute, even unaware of their beheaded companions now lying next to them. They may even be unaware of the danger of passing boys.

However, those same orange tulips now shout out to me a reminder of the danger of young black boys accompanied by a black adult woman. My concern about the cultural divide has taken a hit. My remaining tulips seem OK. I don’t feel so OK.

I have spent so much energy and attention on learning how to speak clearly. It has especially been important to reveal what I was thinking. The emphasis has been to clearly share in words what I was feeling, thinking or intending. Speaking clearly and with meaning has been both my intention and my habitual effort. It seemed the right thing to do.

I now appreciate the value of keeping things unspoken. I see the place and importance of being silent. I am finding this is valuable in small groups and in one-to-one relationships. Knowing when to keep things unspoken, perhaps for only a while, is becoming very important to me. I am appreciating its value.

I actually have habitually been a good listener, and that is a trait I am even more aware of as I consider the value of words unspoken. I am learning the value of things left unspoken. Sometimes leaving things unspoken is not only enough, it is actually better that they remain unspoken. It is better sometimes for me to simply be present and attentive.

I feel like I appear to have come full circle. This decision to be silent, leave things unspoken may once have been my default, and that may be what seems to be the same. But now it is significantly different for me to leave things unspoken. A long time ago, I was simply unable to speak. I typically did not know how to express what I was thinking or felt. So thoughts and feelings went unspoken.

Now it is different, mostly because I am much more in control. I understand much better the workings of my inner life, and am able to speak more freely and clearly when I choose. My inner awareness is so much stronger, and I can choose whether or not to leave that awareness unspoken. I know that I can typically speak in a deep and revealing way, if it seems appropriate, and if I choose.

It is often not appropriate to speak, even though I know I can. I know I can choose to leave things unspoken, and that is sometimes the better way.

When I am not speaking, I am often much more present, more attentive to what others are speaking or doing. I am much more attentive to their words and their actions. My engagement with others is much more reciprocal when I resist or ignore the habitual urge to speak. There are times to leave some things unspoken, and simply be present.

I want to listen more and pay even better attention than I have. I want to develop the habit of critically examining the question of whether others might benefit from what I might say. Will they be better off if I speak, or will they be better off if I leave things unspoken. Will I be better off if I do not speak.

Even I may be better off if I leave some things unspoken, when I am more selective about when to speak or what to say. I want to be more attentive to the option I have of leaving things unspoken.

I intend to put more attention on being aware and being very present. I want to ignore the urge to speak, leaving many things unspoken.

I remember when the notion of being in full bloom had such meaning and excitement for me. I felt enthused, even enthralled by my own blooming and the blooming of all those around me, friends, companions and lovers. That has changed as I and those I know have become more seasoned.

The experience of blooming is still a thing of beauty for me, wonderful to see, touch and enjoy. For me, the freshness of blooming is such an expression of all that lies latent within and offers an alluring promise of what is yet to be.

I still adore and enjoy the blossomed beauty of those around me, much as I do when I walk through my garden. The joy I feel is real and moves my heart to open much as the blossoms do themselves. The scent and presence of blossoms are lovely to experience and behold.

Now I know there is more. I now understand and savor the beauty and depth that only passing seasons can draw forth and produce. No longer only full of promise as blossoms once were, pears hang on the tree, lush with the sweetness and fullness that was scantly present before. There is a ripeness and fullness that comes only because of long days spent basking in the warmth of many suns.

The ripeness has a fullness and depth only dreamed of in those early days of blossoming, before the seasoning began. The touch of ripened fruit has so much more intense awareness than the yielding, ephemeral petals of a blossom recently opened. The fruit is no longer so fragile and fragrant as the blossom once was. It has become the serious and seasoned opening to indulgent taste, an invitation to savor the abundance within.

The passing, almost illusory beauty of the blossom has been replaced by the richness of a well-appointed, succulent source of delight. This is the real thing that only the passing of seasons might produce. It is no longer a lovely promise of things to come.

The seasoned taste has at last arrived. It is the result and embodiment of days upon days of sun, wind and rain. The seasoned fruit is lush with the sweet-flowing juices of a life well-lived.

I have lovely memories of days that witnessed full bloom in myself and in others close to me. I now know that the realization of well-seasoned ripeness in myself and others is a source of even greater joy.

This might be so only because those around me and I have been ripened by days lived in such a way that they have left us so full of seasoning. What I am noticing is that it now seems to require but scant effort to bring the sweet experience of presence into the arena of engagement.

This is the result of the passing of seasons. This is what we have become. There is no need to try hard, we only need to be present, reveal ourselves as we truly are, and the juices flow. It is a time to enjoy the seasoned, sweet presence of one another.

I remember it well. It was so wonderful to feel the joy of blossoming. How could I have know then the joy of ripened, seasoned fruit yet to come.

When someone described me yesterday as a former buddhist monk, my first impulsive action was to correct her. Her reaction caused me to realize that she was strangely correct and actually very insightful.

My arc to buddhist thought has been a long and gradual one. I may have appeared, in my younger days, to be a Franciscan friar. But actually I had begun to think more as a buddhist monk might think. I was still a very young and inexperienced monk when I began to turn to and rely on my own insights and early experience. My own observations became a trusted guide to my thinking, living and decisions.

Initially , this was not so clearly an act of rejection of the concepts handed to me by trusted teachers, those purveyors of religion whom I listened to. Initially, I was more likely to bend traditional concepts to fit my own way of thinking. I actively scavenged traditional concepts to support and justify the way I thought.

First, I would focus on what I had evolved to understand. Then, often with serious study and research, I would search how traditional thought might fit. I might even select marginal ideas that seemed to conclude what I had already come to understand.

My teachers called this sophistry, and that was not considered a compliment. Those were the people who knew no other way than what they had been carefully, forcefully taught. They may not have challenged my thought process as sophistry, but I knew they saw the pitfalls of my approach.

Those who may have been aware of my rebellious thought process, mostly honored my ability to shape their view of the world to my own. To them, I was a rather compliant monk. The one teacher who resisted my thinking had to experience the open defiance of someone who was recognized a top student.

Now, years later, I notice that I have been describing myself as a former monk to my two sons. It is my way of describing my former life in a monastery with a term out of their fantasy world of gaming. For them, a monk is someone with mystical powers. For me, that has been a mildly reliable description of how I have come to see my growth in the experience of insight and mindfulness.

I realize that I have a deep identification with the notion of being a monk. I have in recent years thought of myself as an urban monk, as one who lives and moves in a world of tangible, active humanity.

My monastery, my separation from the active world is my home, my garden and my mind. I am not at all barricaded in that monastic place. Instead, I invite friends, lovers, and even strangers to enter my place of retreat. It seems that my heart flows out constantly from that sacred arena of seclusion. I often return to my monastery for time to reflect, to read and to write.

I know and now understand that I am walking in footprints formerly set out by the Buddha and by a hundred generations of the Buddha’s followers. Some things feel very familiar, some things feel new. But I don’t at all regard myself as follower of the Buddha, even though the thoughts of the buddhist tradition often give rich meaning to my own experience. I am still a non-conforming monk, I suppose.

Instead, I consider that the living Buddha resides in my own heart, still guiding me in subtle ways. This has, unknown to me, always been this way. The arc of the Buddha’s presence has been long and often subtle, anchored as it is in the early days when I was first a monk.

I think that I have never left the life of a monk, even though it is now a form of life that is strictly interior. In some ways, however, it manifests itself even more today in the way I relate to people, plants and the planet. The connections I experience daily are what I consider to be the life of a dedicated monk.

I may not manifest myself in the robes of a monk any longer, but my heart is still that of the young monk who set out on this arc of living many decades ago. I continue to be the monk I believe I was destined to be.

I am aware that I could not do it alone. I can become unfolded only so much alone, but in reality I am not alone. The unfolding, the opening up has been the result of tender presence and gentle touch. There are some things that require the presence of a companion.

I know that, like the large maple tree in my back yard, the buds have been there, formed and folded, but waiting to open wide. The buds open only when they are touched by the soft, warm breeze of April. For me the breeze must be in the form of the touch of spoken words, the caress that comes in many ways.

The awaking is an unfolded slumber that has finally surrendered to a call of an April breeze that is both close and yet distinct. Perhaps, it is the diminishing illusion of separateness that has brought this unfolding experience. Feeling the presence of an-other has been to experience the sameness we both inhabit.

For me, there is a recognition that the unfolded bud has now become the essence of the April breeze, and the breeze is now the essence of the bud. Both are forever changed. The memory is all that exists of the past. The opening is now what is present.

When the bud has unfolded, it is no longer just a bud. It is now a bud touched by the breeze. The breeze has become a lasting part of the unfolded bud. Both are forever changed. Neither bud or breeze can return to their former state.

This is a wondrous place to be, a wondrous thing to experience. Know that the experienced mingling of essence is but a discovery of what already exists. However, there is such a great joy that there are moments when I can be aware that we actually connected as one.

This kind of joy demands that the bud and breeze can yield to the other. Perhaps, it requires that two people be both April breeze and bud for the other. It becomes apparent that when the buds are open, there is no turning back. There is no longer a breeze, no longer folded buds. April has truly arrived, the world will no longer be as it was. The unfolding has occurred.

I’m beginning to think that it must require that someone be somewhat fearless to be in a dynamic relationship with me.   

I am choosing what I consider a fully human and wonderful freedom.   I choose to be both a free spirit without bounds and still deeply connected, bound as a close and loyal friend and lover.

I am aware that it must take courage for anyone to be a close friend or lover with me, to feel confident and self-assured in the freedom of mutual flight.   It must take courage to rely on me as a partner, but also on the strength of one own’s wings.   

It is difficult for me to imagine anyone in a relationship with me who is fearful of soaring flight or who is hesitant to plunge rapturously into deep and uncharted realms.   Friends and lovers alike must sometimes be confused and mystified by my occasional abandon and transparency, but still they arrive and stand by me.  Sometimes they soar with me, caught on an updraft of joy and elation.  

I am aware that it must require that someone abandon their fears and self-doubt if they are to be close to someone who is constantly exploring, constantly pushing into what looks like a life in thin air.   It turns out that some have faltered or turned aside, chosen something other than risky flight.   

However, I am grateful for all those other companions who have fearlessly come close, especially those who have accepted my invitation to imagine with me, take risks and be unconstrained.   

The realm of relationship is not a place suitable for ballroom dancing, a place where one leads and the other follows. I prefer the ways of contra dancing, where the roles of partners do not allow one to lead or dominate the other.

I’ve made the mistakes with partners, first being the one who dominates. Then I gradually became subservient as she clawed her way to a position of dominance. Not at all a nice way to dance.

I now choose a dance where we are neither dominant or dominated. I choose a dance that is instead a whirling frenzy of two people in motion, two people who have abandoned themselves to the dance.

I have gone through the difficulty of several serious break-ups. Twice I have had to deal with the challenges of getting officially divorced. People, on hearing me mention that I recently got divorced, have typically offered a sympathetic “That’s too bad.”

I think I have startled them when I have replied, “No, it has been good. Difficult, but good.” I have few regrets for the years I have spent with my partners. Nor do I regret the decision that we made, sometimes jointly, to end that partnership.

I think that I have actually learned a lot, and the evidence of that I see in the joy that flows through my life, day after glowing day. I may simply be someone who has to squeeze a number of avocados before finding one that is properly ripened and promises to please my pallet.

Perhaps I never have had the skill to recognize a ripe avocado when I saw one. Maybe recognizing and selecting a deep relationship is no different for me. Maybe the selection is by its nature a temporary one because I am learning to be more insightful as I go.

Sometimes, I had to learn just how to grasp and squeeze an avocado to recognize its degree of ripeness, suitability and promise. I think that I am getting much better at avocado picking. And I love the taste of a properly ripened avocado.

I think it is a terrible human trait. It is so limiting how I have this adept skill to compare what I experience with something else.

Perhaps the ability to make comparisons is what helped the early members of my species to survive. It may have helped them recognize differences and avoid a lurking danger.

But I see it as a trait and skill that now restricts how I might experience myself, people, plants, the planet. I make a great effort to unlearn how I have become so able to make comparisons.

I am learning to stare into the face of another person without a comparing mind, and the deep richness and beauty of that person is able to emerge, be seen and be felt. Making comparisons doesn’t help me at all. What helps me is to recognize that there is only what presents right now and that is all that matters.

I am better present and most joyful when I am aware of nothing that has gone before or is yet to come. None of that is of any consequence, there is no benefit, no reason to compare.

It is better if I drink in the glow, the beauty and glow of what is before me right now. This is the unique time that I am captivated, fully captured by the glow as I have never been before. Not even when I stared into the commanding presence of a great full moon.

I drink it all in, there is nothing to compare. There is only the deep feeling of being in the presence of radiant beauty. There is nothing quite like it. There is nothing to compare.

I am being lured into uncharted territory by the appeal of wildness. It is a persistent appeal that draws me forward, and I am not at all aware where it will lead.

I constantly struggle to shed the constricting chains and deceptive layers of domesticity and cultured convention. These conditioned strictures have shaped my life, my experience and my expectations. They have kept me separate and created an atmosphere of separation in which I have lived. I have the undeniable hunger of someone who lusts for wildness, for a life of unconditioned freedom.

I now understand better why two things have such an earnest appeal to me. The first has been the women’s movement and the second is Buddhist teachings.

For perhaps forty years, the women’s movement has held a fascination for me, and I never quite realized until recently that it was not just for women but for me as well.

I think that the struggle of women to be fully human and be recognized as fully human is very much like my own struggle. Those women who spoke out and acted out have been pioneers in their efforts to celebrate the essence of their humanity.

Not unlike wild animals, women were domesticated to be subservient to men. Many women have been casting aside the restrictions of that domesticity and subservience. Like them, I want the freedom to experience the freedom to be fully human.

Regrettably, I have heard very few voices of men who have had the courage to look and live beyond the purloined privilege of being male, embracing their deep humanness. There has been, of course, the voice of Robert Bly, but even he mostly celebrated maleness with a mixed message of what it meant to be simply human.

Stanley Kunitz has been a voice I have come to love. His words speak to me of the deep human, genderless energy of being a gardener. But it has mostly been the voices of women who have spoken to the wildness inside me. Their daring bid for liberation does not feel foreign or strange to me. Instead it speaks to my own deep desire to be fully human, unshaped by the conventions of centuries of control.

The second thing that has been of similar appeal to me has been the traditional teachings of Buddhism. The voices of Buddhists have resonated with and reinforced my own desire to experience what it means to be fully human.

The experience of deep concentration offers a clear window into the spiritual nature of humans. It has shown me a glimpse of what is possible. More than any other path of insight, the buddhist teachers I have encountered have given me a map of liberation, a taste of wildness.

They have shown me how to free the natural human wildness. For me, Buddhist teachers offer the experience of leading an unconditioned life and being fully human. This brush with wildness has given me the nascent feeling of being fully alive.

I may have all the appearances of being male, and I am definitely male-identified. But my heart is neither male or female. It is becoming abundantly clear that it is a combination of both.

As I grow more confident in my coming out as a human, I am especially gratified for the female voices and the presence of great women in my life who have awakened the sense of feminine in me. I am grateful that they have allowed me to walk beside them and share their path to wildness and freedom.

I am grateful for all my spiritual teachers who, each in their unique fashion, have encouraged me to enter a world of unconditioned wildness.