100%

At one of our first work weekends here at the temple in September, a few of us were sitting around after lunch talking. The conversation turned toward this amazing property and how quickly all this had happened – from a vague idea a few months ago, to now getting ready for our first retreat in our new home. One person said: “Thinking back to the spring, what are the odds that we would be sitting here today?”

This thought often passes through my head when I work with groups of people. What are the odds that this particular group of people would be sitting around the circle? People that often don’t know each other. People from all walks of life. What are the odds that these exact people - no more and no less – would be sitting here today – talking or meditating or whatever we are doing?

I think this too about my marriage. What are the odds, out of all the human beings on this planet, that Melissa and I would not only have met each other, but would have been so wildly attracted to each other that we would make the ‘conscious’ choice to live our lives together? And that we would encounter a Zen teacher? And that we would move to Worcester? And that…

But in September, in response to “What are the odds?” Someone - I think it was Ray - said: “One hundred percent.” The conversation stopped and we laughed in recognition. Such a delightful declaration of the unseen obvious.

There is no other life that we could be living. No other place where we could be. No other circumstances than the ones we find ourselves. Everything that happened has already happened with 100% certainty. From this perspective, I rest a little easier in what is here – no need to fight or second-guess. Just look around, appreciate, and step forward.

No Problem, It Just Gets Worse

Living in the temple feels like living in a pot that I am making. This place, both physically and organizationally, is being created as we live here. We are already set up and functioning, and it is also just the beginning. Problems and questions abound. How we will deal with the snow in the parking lot this winter? Should we repair the asphalt around the drain now or wait until the spring? How do we chart a course for the ownership of this place to move from us to the larger organization of Boundless Way?

Reflecting on this feeling this morning, I recalled a week-long clay workshop I took in the mid-1970’s with Bruno LaVerdiere, a former monk turned clay artist. In the middle of the week I got stuck with some of the pieces I was working on. The pieces were nearing completion, but I had no idea how to finish and resolve them. I was discouraged and saw no way forward. I went to Bruno to ask for his help in my dilemma and to report my doubts about my capacity to be creative.

Bruno listened patiently to my expression of angst. When I had finished, he laughed and said ‘Don’t worry, it just gets worse.’ I was shocked and reassured. In that moment, the problem, the stuckness shifted from being what was wrong with me to being part of the creative process itself.

So as the doubts and uncertainties arise, now on a much bigger scale than worrying about how to finish a pot, I turn to this same reassurance. When I move toward the difficulty as part of the process rather than as a comment on me and my capacity, I don’t get stuck in the same way. Of course I do get stuck, again and again. And then of course I find a way into and through again and again.

(Photo of clay sculpture now on the temple grounds made by me using Bruno's coiling and scraping technique. Photo Credit: Kevin Osbourne)

Working at the Temple

My new life feels surprisingly like my old life - only the location has changed. The same range of emotions and thoughts, but somewhat more intense as the scale seems to have gotten bigger.

This photo was taken Monday. We've been working on building a handicap access ramp to the temple. My main job is to encourage and appreciate the many people who are coming together to make this happen. But occasionally, I get to go out and pound some nails and cut some lumber. The physical labor is a relief. I feel privileged to join in and be part of this ramp as it appears out of thin air.

Many thanks to the men in the photo who are leading this project - Will who is the mastermind and master carpenter who tells us what to do. And to Ray, master organizer and community builder who invites and welcomes everyone.

Finding a Place

This morning I wake early looking for a place in the house to feel at home. All my things are here but I’m still wandering - looking for places that belong to me. I already love our new house that is so alive with the possibilities of community and practice, but I realized last night that I need to find a place to have just for me.

It needs to be like a secret place in the woods – a place you get to only if you know the special paths – the ones that are hidden to the casual observer. And you have to remember how to get there yourself because there are no maps or directions. Or is it that the terrain keeps changing? And when you get there, you know you are home. The rocks and trees, the ants and birds welcome you back to the secret club of life. Here, everything is sacred and significant – from the arrangement of a few sticks on the ground to the prayers that are ceaselessly uttered. Everything is treasured and you are safe.

In our carefully created living room, I turn the plush golden chair about twenty degrees more toward the window and feel a slight shift. My tea cup rests close at hand and my Macbook is slightly warm in my lap. I have only to turn my head slightly to see the black lattice of tree limbs - graceful against the first light of the pale eastern sky. Moonlight comes in the west window.

Maybe this will do.

Returning Home

A clear blue morning in Dublin. After breakfast, Paul and Rita and I take a short walk past the brick row houses to the grounds of the old military hospital where Leonard Cohen sang last summer. On the way, they proudly point out the prison where so many revolutionaries where held and killed during the struggle for independence. They say it's the most popular tourist destination in Ireland.

At 7:30 in the evening in Worcester, I unpacked my suitcase and set my smelly sneakers – still wet from my walk through the Welsh hills – outside. I fall gratefully into my new bed. I suspect that 36 hours is too long to leave wet sneakers enclosed in plastic bags, but my exhaustion brings a fog of equanimity to the consideration. I drift quickly toward sleep, comforted by the occasional murmuring of the three kind souls who are downstairs repainting the zendo.

I wake at 4:30 in the morning and lie lazily in bed till 5:00. It's a different waking up in the middle of so many things to do. The dream of green Welsh fields and mountains dotted with sheep carefully contained by endless stonewalls is ending. I notice my hand resting on my forehead – like someone with a headache or a father lovingly touching the brow of his worried son. I rise and make my way through the unpacked boxes in the hallway down to the unpacked boxes in the kitchen. The painters have washed the dishes I left in the sink from my hurried dinner. Once again I am touched.

I begin to make my morning 'cuppa' with the industrial grade English tea I bought on the trip. It's Typhoo Tea - quite low class, but totally unavailable here, and therefore special. Having no milk, I take my first walk to the nearby convenience store. It's still dark and glaring yellow light shining through the wall of glass looks especially American to me. A guy in a pickup truck wearing a Red Sox baseball cap arrives just before me and holds the door open for me. I say 'thanks' and he so 'sure.' Neither one of us has an accent. I'm surprised to feel the relief of being on familiar ground.

View From My New Toilet

Sitting on my new toilet in my new bathroom in my new house this morning, I look out the window above my right shoulder toward the first glimmers of morning in the eastern sky. The twinkling morning star above the trees seems a good omen. I recall the efforts of my brothers Martin Luther and the Buddha –- but nothing special happens.

We moved last Saturday. Our flotilla of a 24-foot rental truck, four pickup trucks, and a bevy of assorted cars made three trips along the seven tenths of a mile path between the two houses - the one we're leaving and the one we're beginning. With the amazing, incredible, and extraordinary assistance of thirty Boundless Way Zen community members and friends, we moved the contents of our entire house (and pottery studio) in eight hours.

By four o’clock, everything was in our new house – in the new Zen Center – and we gathered our sweaty bodies and sat together in the zendo for ten minutes of silence. Entering the stillness – spent from the day’s emotional and physical efforts – I felt such immense gratitude and exhaustion, I could barely keep from bursting out sobbing. I felt so grateful and unexpectedly blessed to be in the midst of this generous community. and of what we are creating together.

Now it’s Tuesday. Only a few of the boxes have been unpacked, but the zendo is neatly arranged with our black square cushions. The Burmese Buddha figure Melissa bought at a tag sale several years ago sits comfortably in his new abode and the Buddha’s mother figure that Josh loaned us dances in the grand entryway. Here on the new porch I sit in my grandmother’s chair and look out through the elegant white columns that frame my new wild backyard. A stray unplanned maple tree juts up inappropriately and the cars rush by behind me – and it all seems just right.

Bye Bye 23

This is my last morning blog from 23 Berwick Street. It’s 5:30 a.m. and I’m sitting in the family room, drinking my last cup of tea, about to fold my last basket of laundry. In three hours, thirty sangha-mates will come over to help load all our worldly possessions into a truck, drive .7 miles down the street, and unload it into our new house.

Momentous and nothing special. These milestone moments – they come and go in an instant - like road signs that flash by as we speed down the highway of our lives. I’m aware that time is not really regulated nor measured accurately by clocks and calendars. I still fill in the colored blocks on my i-calendar and I still look at the hands of the clock to know when to expect my client calls, but I also find a spaciousness that abides in the tiniest house of time (thanks Kabir & Bly) and an awareness of the fullness of past and future present in the moment at hand.

I am actually quite excited about today. It’s a kind of party. I am already touched by the generosity of so many people willing to come and be a part of this move.

Enough writing. On to today’s tears and laughter – the sweat and the refreshment – the connection and the dislocation – the ending and the beginning. Once more stepping off the 100 foot flag pole. Once more putting cereal and soy milk in my bowl and lifting the spoon to my mouth.