THOUGHTS ON SOLITUDE AND THE LAST BUTTERFLIES OF SUMMER

I love to be alone.

I never found a companion

that was so companionable as solitude.

Thoreau

I need to be alone . . . 

I need the sunshine and the paving stones

of the streets without companions, without conversation, 

face to face with  myself, with only the music of my heart for company.

Henry Miller

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone;

and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom;

for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Schopenhauer

I live in that solitude

which is painful in youth, 

but delicious in the years of maturity.

Einstein

Loneliness is the poverty of self;

solitude is richness of self.

May Sarton

But your solitude will be a support and a home for you,

even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances,

and from it you will find all paths.

Rilke

Wherever I am, the world comes after me.

It offers me its busyness.  It does not believe 

that I do not want it.  Now I understand

why the old poets of China went so far and high

into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.

Mary Oliver

"Why I Wake Early"

Uncontradicting solitude

Supports me on its giant palm;

And like a sea-anemone

Or simple snail, there cautiously

Unfolds, emerges, what I am.

Philip Larkin

In order to be open to creativity, 

one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude.

One must overcome the fear of being alone.

Rollo May

When from our better selves we have too long

Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop,

Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,

How gracious, how benign, is Solitude.

Wordsworth

THE HUMMINGBIRD AND THE HONEY

Photo by Richard Hoode (Wikimedia Commons)

Stand Still Like The Hummingbird, a collection of stories and essays by Henry Miller, remains one of the most cherished books in my library.  I don't know how long I have had my copy, which was published more than fifty years ago, but I have dipped into its profound wisdom with regularity for most of my adult life.  Some of that wisdom was quoted in Aways Merry and Bright, which I posted in 2010.  Here are some other pearls that I believe are worthy of reflection:

On happiness —

Man craves happiness here on earth, not fulfillment, not emancipation. Are they utterly deluded, then, in seeking happiness?  No, happiness is desirable, but it is a by-product, the result of a way of life, not a goal which is forever beyond one's grasp.  Happiness is achieved en route . . . To make happiness a goal is to kill it in advance.

On real power —

If there is one power which man indubitably possesses—have we not had proof of it again and again?—it is the power to alter one's way of life.  It is perhaps man's only power.

 On struggle and surrender —

Struggle has its importance, but we tend to overrate it.  Harmony, serenity, [and] bliss do not come from struggle but from surrender.

On questing —

The long voyage is not an escape but a quest.  The man is seeking for a way to be of service to the world.  Toward the end he realizes what his mission in life is—"it is to be a bridge of goodwill."  Un homme de bonne volonté! 

On Taoism —

One takes up the path in order to become the path. 

On the teachings of Buddha, Lao-tzu, and Jesus —

What they tried to convey to us, these luminaries, was that there is no need for all these laws of ours, these codes and conventions, these books of learning, these armies and navies, these rockets and spaceships, these thousand and one impedimenta which weigh us down, keep us apart, and bring us sickness and death.  We need only to behave as brothers and sisters, follow our hearts not our minds, play not work, create and not add invention upon invention.  Though we realize it not, they demolished the props which sustain our world of make-believe . . .

They changed worlds, yes.  They traveled far.  But standing still.  Let us not forget that the road inward toward the source stretches as far and as deep as the road outward.

On standing still like the hummingbird, instead of "getting somewhere" —

When you find you can go neither backward nor forward . . . when you are convinced that all the exits are blocked, either you take to believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird.  The miracle is that the honey is always there, right under your nose, only you were too busy searching elsewhere to realize it.  The worst is not death, but being blind, blind to the fact that everything about life is in the nature of the miraculous.  

Henry Miller

(1891-1980)

Have a nice weekend, everyone, 

and make sure to find some honey wherever you are.

ACCEPTANCE

Mysteriously, wonderfully, I bid farewell to what goes, I greet what comes; for what comes cannot be denied, and what goes cannot be detained.

Chuang-Tzu

The way of acceptance and spiritual freedom is found not by going somewhere but by in going, and the stage where happiness can be known is now, at this very moment, at the very place where you happen to stand.  It is in accepting fully your state of soul as it is now . . . . The point is not to accept it in order that you may pass on to a "higher" state, but to accept because acceptance in itself is that "higher" state, if such it may be called. 

                                                         Alan Watts

Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every such moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.

Henry Miller 

MYSTERY AND WONDER

We wake, if ever at all, to mystery.

Annie Dillard

Driven by a desire to be completely liberated from the cultural provincialism of the American south, where I was born and spent my early years, I have dedicated much of my life to the pursuit of knowledge.  Seldom, if ever, have I questioned the metaphorical truth of Shakespeare's observation in Henry VI that "ignorance is the curse of God, knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven . . . "

Now, however, as I approach the end of my seventh decade, I'm less inclined to see ignorance and knowledge as some kind of binary choice.  Ignorance and knowledge can only be intelligently discussed in relative terms, and they usually walk hand in hand throughout our lives.  Regardless of one's level of education, what one knows is always dwarfed by what one does not know.  Our most profound questions always seem hydra-headed; slay one and two more will arise in its place.  Perhaps Plato's observation still holds true: "The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant."

And consider this:  In his recent book—The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality—science historian and writer Richard Panek states that only four percent of the universe consists of matter that makes up you, me, the earth, the stars, the planets, and the galaxies, everything within the ambit of our current knowledge.  The remaining ninety-six percent, referred to by cosmologists as dark matter and dark energy, is unknown.  What's even more stunning, many of the world's most prominent scientists believe that it will continue to remain unknown.

In short—with all of our scientific advancements, with all of our technological discoveries, with all of our penetrations into the worlds of quantum physics—we know only a small fraction of the universe in which we spin our lives.  What we know is wrapped in the larger mystery of what we do not know and may never know.

Set forth below are some interesting observations on the the subject of learning and knowledge on the one hand, versus mystery and wonder on the other.  I have punctuated these quotes with abstract photos in which I have attempted to capture at least a hint of some of the mystery of which I speak.  With the exception of the header photo, all of these images were created by panning my camera at slow shutter speeds across man-made lights against dark backgrounds.  Limited light against a background of infinite darkness seems to be an appropriate metaphor for our place in this mysterious universe.

The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery.  There is always more mystery.

Anais Nin

Until we accept the fact that life itself is founded in mystery, we shall learn nothing.

Henry Miller

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.

Charles Dickens

A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search of truth or perfection, is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of such days if fatal to human life.

Lewis Mumford

Mystery is a resource, like coal or gold, and its preservation if a fine thing.

Tom Cahill

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace—only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.

Anne Lamott 

Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.

Henry Miller

The approach of a man's life out of the past is history, and the approach of time out of the future is mystery.  Their meeting is the present, and it is consciousness, the only time life is alive.  The endless wonder of this meeting is what causes the mind, in its inward liberty of a frozen morning, to turn back and question and remember.  The world is full of places. Why is it that I am here?

Wendell Berry

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.  He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead.

Albert Einstein 

God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.

Dag Hammarskjold 

The final mystery is oneself.
Oscar Wilde

SANCTUARY AND BOOKS

Inspired by recent postings of several other bloggers, including my friend, Ruth, author of Synch-ro-ni-zing, I have decided to pull back the curtain on the study in which I read, write, and ponder questions that will never be answered.  In the spirit of full disclosure, however, I must confess that that these photos—taken on the morning of my departure for a few months in South Carolina— suggest a level of neatness that is rarely found in my little sanctuary.  On most days, the study is cluttered with books on the floor, mail and periodicals on the desk, an myriad other items that a more organized person would have disposed of promptly and properly (e.g., abandoned coffee cups, opened maps, computer cables I don't understand, and shoes taken off the night before).

My study (header photo) is a converted bedroom that is furnished with a few of my paintings, a photo of my first yellow lab ("Baci"), three bookcases, and the desk and credenza that are holdovers from my days of practicing law.  

Other than books, furniture, and computer equipment, I do not keep many objects in my study.  On these bookshelves, however, you can see a few objects that I value for spiritual reasons.   On the middle shelf is a hand-thrown begging bowl (made by a potter friend), which is a daily reminder of how little one actually needs to live; a scallop shell (symbol of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela), which is a reminder that every day and every step is part of a pilrimage; and small carved statue of Buddha, which is a reminder that I can always choose peace.  


Beneath the shelves is a beautiful stone with a single word carved into its center: "Create."  Few words in my vocabulary hold as much power and possibility as this word.  

I have finally abandoned the the idea that I can retain all of my favorite books in my house.  Many are in storage and I am finally becoming more comfortable with the idea of donating books to the local library unless there is some reason for not doing so.  What remains in my study are those volumes which invite me to return to their pages frequently—poetry, a few favorite novels, art books, travel books, and a variety of books relating to philosophy, theology, and ancient wisdom traditions.

For the most part, my books are not organized according to author, subject matter, or any other standard.  On this shelf, however, are treasured volumes of two of my favorite authors, Henry Miller and Thomas Merton.  This is the default shelf when I find myself teetering toward despair.  Any volume on this shelf is likely to clear my vision and lift my spirits.

As you can see from this shelf, my reading habits are very eclectic.  Lots of books on religious and spiritual traditions—Buddhism, Zen, Taoism, Hinduism, and the origins of Christianity.  I see some volumes by Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, and Annie Lamott, all of whom I admire.  Others on this shelf are are Krishnamurti, Dante, Emerson, and the poet Stanley Kunitz.  Just in front of the small replica of a bicycle I once owned is my tattered but treasured copy of the great Kazantzakis novel, Zorba the Greek.

This shelf has a bit of almost everything—more Henry Miller, an anthology of the poetry of Jorge Luis Borges, several volumes on yoga, a two-volume anthology of American poetry, the collected works of Yeats, more works by Wendell Berry, a selection Nietzsche's works, and several books on the art of writing.  I also see my copy of Jon Kabat-Zinn's fine book, Full Catastrophe Living.  I'm especially fond of this title because it reminds me of one of the main reasons I have always loved books: They prepare us for the full measure of life, including all of the catastrophes that will be encountered by each of us.

I'm hopelessly addicted to travel books and travel essays, some of which are found on the top shelf here.  I also see a favorite book by Ken Wilber, a compassionate philosopher whom I greatly admire;  several works by Rilke, including Letters to a Young Poet, a small volume which I read at least once every year; and one of my books by Karen Armstrong, a contemporary theologian who has written a number of fine books, including a biography of Buddha.

Looking closer at the bookshelves in the second photo of this post, one can see that I have a rather insatiable interest in various wisdom traditions.  Underpinning this interest is a lifelong desire to understand the common threads that are found in all of these traditions.

On this shelf is a novel, The Sea, by John Banville, a fine Irish novelist whom I have only discovered in the past few years.  There is also a copy of Crossing to Safety, a novel by the late Wallace Stegner, whose work I also greatly admire. Between these novels are several spiritual books,  including the Tao Te Ching and more Krishnamurti.  I also see a couple of French books—additional evidence of my being an unabashed Francophile.

For what I consider to be enlightened discussions of Christianity, I usually turn to iconoclasts such as some of those represented on this shelf—Paul Tillich, Meister Eckhart, and John Shelby Spong.  I also greatly admire the work of Eckhart Tolle, who, like Aldus Huxley in The Perennial Philosophy, has done much to elucidate the core principles that underpin all of the great religions and spiritual traditions.  I'm especially fond of Eckhart Tolle's book, A New Earth.

Some of my Alan Watts books are found on this shelf.  The writings of Watts were instrumental in introducing me to Zen several decades ago.  Also found on this shelf are several different translations of the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, as well as a volume of the Upanishads and some additional works by Krishnamurti.

Well, there you have it—a few glimpses into my sanctuary, one of the places where I can usually find refuge from the outside world and passage into the interior realm. For those who might have the inclination, I would recommend this little exercise, not only because it is always interesting to see the contents of other people's bookshelves, but also because one can discover so much about oneself my simply looking at the favorite books of one's life.  A bookshelf is a better mirror of oneself that a piece of glass.

THANKSGIVING EVERY DAY

As we enter this week of Thanksgiving, I want to thank all of my friends in the blogging community for enriching my life daily.  You have been, and continue to be, great sources of inspiration, education, and joy.  More importantly, you have proven yourselves to be true friends — fellow pilgrims on this magical and mysterious journey we call life.

My offering today is very simple:  some abstract photos taken during the past few weeks, some pertinent observations of others about unexpected beauty, and, finally, a lovely poem by Anne Sexton about everyday blessings.  Enjoy.

One of the most important — and most neglected — elements in the beginning of the interior life is the ability to respond to reality, to see the value and the beauty in ordinary things, to come alive to the splendor that is all around us.

Thomas Merton 

Everything is life is speaking, is audible, is communicating, in spite of its apparent silence.

Hazrat Inayat Khan 

 For lack of attention, a thousand forms of loveliness elude us every day.

Evelyn Underhill

                                 No more words.  In the name of this place we
                                 drink in with our breathing, stay quiet like a flower,
                                 So the nightbirds will start singing.

Rumi

If you love it enough, anything will talk with you.

George Washington Carver 

The moment one gives close attention to anything . . . it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.

Henry Miller 

Take, for example, a pencil, ashtray, anything, and holding it before you in both hands, regard it for a while.  Forgetting its use and name, yet continuing to regard it, ask yourself seriously, "What is it?" . . . Its dimension of wonder opens; for the mystery of the being of that thing is identical with the mystery of the being of the universe, and yourself.

Joseph Campbell 

                                                 WELCOME MORNING

                                   There is joy

                                   in all:

                                   in the hair I brush each morning,

                                   in the Cannon towel, newly washed,

                                   that I rub my body with each morning,

                                   in the chapel of eggs I cook

                                   each morning,

                                   the spoon and the chair

                                   that cry "hello there, Anne"

                                   each morning,

                                   in the godhead of the table

                                   that I set my silver, plate, cup upon

                                   each morning.

                                   All this is God,

                                   right here in my pea-green house

                                   each morning

                                   and I mean,

                                   though often forget,

                                   to give thanks,

                                   to faint down by the kitchen table

                                   in prayer of rejoicing

                                   as the holy birds at the kitchen window

                                   peck into their marriage of seeds.

                                  So while I think of it,

                                  let me paint a thank-you on my palm

                                  for this God, this laughter of the morning,

                                  lest it go unspoken.

                                  The Joy that isn't shared, I've heard,

                                  dies young.

                                  Anne Sexton

Notes on photographs:  (1) detail from abandoned Chevrolet tow truck; (2) mooring line and reflections from dock in marina; (3) patina of old metal strip found in boatyard; (4) sailboat rudder and keg; (5) sunrise on Tred Avon River; (6) stern of old work boat; (7) water reflection of boat workshop; (8) water reflection of machinery and sailboat masts: (9) detail from abandoned Chevrolet tow truck; (10) collage of some of my other abstract photos created by my blogging friend, Neighbor, over at Temporary Reality .

HAPPY THANKSGIVING
TO 
EVERYONE!

ALWAYS MERRY AND BRIGHT

Henry Miller

With the 1934 publication of Tropic of Cancer in France, Henry Miller made his debut as a major writer on the world stage.  In the United States, however, the book was declared  obscene, and no publisher dared to publish or market it for twenty-seven years.  Sadly, the much-trumpeted constitutional right of free speech offered Miller no protection, at least initially, from the puritanical obsessions that were ingrained in American culture during that period.

Ironically, as one might have expected, the American ban on Tropic of Cancer served only to enhance Miller's reputation, both here and abroad.  The Saturday Review of Literature called Miller "the largest force lately risen on the horizon of American letters;" Ezra Pound announced that the world, at last, had "an unprintable book that is fit to read;" and George Orwell claimed -- perhaps excessively -- that Miller was "the only imaginative prose-writer of the slightest value who has appeared among the English-speaking races for some years past."

To its everlasting credit, Grove Press finally mustered the courage to publish Tropic of Cancer in 1961, knowing full well that the company would be charged with violations of state and federal obscenity laws. When the charges were filed, Grove devoted considerable time and money in the defense of Miller's constitutional rights of freedom of speech and expression.  While the lower courts were not sympathetic with Grove's assertions,  Miller's position was finally vindicated in 1964 when the  Supreme Court ruled that Tropic of Cancer was not obscene, but was instead a legitimate work of literature.  Unfortunately, however, the damage to Miller's reputation had already been done. Even to this day, Miller's name is often associated with hedonism and obscenity, especially among those who have never taken the time to read a broad sampling of his writings.

In The Books in My Life, Miller said this about his works and his life:

What were the subjects which formed my style, my character, my approach to life.  Broadly these: The love of life itself, the pursuit of truth, wisdom and understanding, mystery, the power of language, the antiquity and glory of man, eternality, the purpose of existence, the oneness of everything, self-liberation, the brotherhood of man, the meaning of love, the relation of sex to love, the enjoyment of sex, humor, oddities, and eccentricities in all life's aspects, travel, adventure, discovery, prophecy, magic (white and black), art, games, confessions, revelations, mysticism, more particularly the mystics themselves, the varieties of faith and worship, the marvelous in all realms and under all aspects, for there is only the marvelous and nothing but the marvelous.

According to my count, Miller has identified over thirty subjects that underpinned his work, and, interestingly, only two involve sex.  It is the fear of sexual content, however, that has kept so many potential readers from considering the extraordinary works of this fine and gifted writer.  And for those who continue to be somewhat apprehensive about  Tropic of Cancer, it is worth noting that the autobiographical novel was on Time magazine's 2005 list of the best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005.

Set forth below are some brief excerpts from Miller's writing.  Hopefully, these excerpts  will illustrate the scope of his interests and encourage readers to reconsider some of his work.

On Acceptance --

Life, as we all know, is conflict, and man, being part of life, is himself an expression of conflict.  If he recognizes the fact and accepts it, he is apt, despite the conflict, to know peace and to enjoy it.  But to arrive at this end, which is only a beginning (for we haven't begun to live yet!), man has got to learn the doctrine of acceptance, that is, of unconditional surrender, which is love.

        The Wisdom of the Heart

This doctrine of acceptance, the most difficult yet simple of all the radical ideas man has proposed to himself, embodies the understanding that the world is made up of conflicting members in all stages of evolution and devolution, that good and evil co-exist even though the one be but the shadow of the other, and that the world, for all it ills and shortcomings, was made for our enjoyment.

        Stand Still Like a Hummingbird

On Solitude --

Only when we are truly alone does the fullness and richness of life reveal itself to us.

        Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch

On Trust -- 

The key word is trust.  Trust that everything that happens in life, even those experiences that cause pain, will serve to better you in the end.  It's easy to lose the inner vision, the greater truths, in the face of tragedy. There really is no such thing as suffering simply for the sake of suffering. Along with developing a basic trust in the rhyme and reason of life itself, I advise you to trust your intuition.  It is a far better guide in the long run than your intellect.

       Reflections

On Harmony with Life --

When God answers Job cosmologically it is to remind man that he is only a part of creation, that it is his duty to put himself in accord with it or perish.  When man puts his head out of the stream of life he becomes self-conscious.  And with self-consciousness comes arrest, fixation, symbolized so vividly by the myth of Narcissus.

        The Books of My Life

On Destiny --

Every man has his own destiny: The only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him.

        The Wisdom of the Heart

On Individuality --

Let a man believe in himself and he will find a way to exist despite the barriers and traditions which hem him in.

        Stand Still Like a Hummingbird


On Understanding --

Understanding is not a piercing of the mystery, but an acceptance of it, a living blissfully with it, in it, through it and by it.

        The Wisdom of the Heart

On the Miraculous --

When you are convinced that all the exits are blocked, either you take to believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird.  The miracle is that the honey is always there, right under your nose, only you were too busy searching elsewhere to realize it.  The worst is not death but being blind, blind to the fact that everything about life is in the nature of the miraculous.

        Stand Still Like a Hummingbird


On Seeing Properly --

One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.

        Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch


On Happiness --

Man craves happiness here on earth, not fulfillment, not emancipation.  Are they utterly deluded, then, in seeking happiness?  No, happiness is desirable, but it is a by-product, the result of a way of life, not a goal which is forever beyond one's grasp.  Happiness is achieved en route.  And if it be ephemeral, as most men believe, it can also give way, not to anxiety or despair, but to a joyousness which is serene and lasting.  To make happiness the goal is to kill it in advance.  If one must have a goal, which is questionable, why not self-realization?

       Stand Still Like a Hummingbird


These quotes are just some of the passages that have been underlined through the years in my copies of Miller's books.  I revisit the books frequently, interested always in the underlined passages, wondering if I have made progress on the questions that Miller has raised. And that's what Miller does best -- he is always challenging me to take a new look at the assumptions that underpin my life.

The title of this posting, "always merry and bright," was Henry Miller's motto.  Spend a little time with Miller and you are likely to feel, as I do, that his merriment can be contagious.

FEASTING ON THE AUTHENTIC LIFE

"Every man has his own destiny," wrote Henry Miller, "the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him."  Wise counsel, for sure, but it is seldom followed.  Many people, perhaps most people, are so conditioned by family, culture, and experience that they never discover their own destiny, and if they do, they usually lack the courage to follow it. More often than not, they end up leading what Thoreau called "lives of quiet desperation."

Consider the pathetic narrator of The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, the powerful poem by T.S. Eliot (left) on the horrors of the inauthentic life. Prufrock is a man who always needs "to prepare a face to meet the faces" that he meets; who always thinks he has "time yet for a hundred indecisions, and for a hundred visions and revisions;" who desperately wants to "disturb the universe," but, sadly, cannot muster the courage to do so.  He is a man who has measured out his life with coffee spoons; who feels that he is "pinned and wriggling on the wall;" who doesn't know how to "spit out all the butt-ends" of his days and ways.  

Dare to eat of peach?  Dare to part your hair from behind?  Dare "to force the moment to a crisis?"  Not Prufrock.  He can do none of these things, for he lost his authenticity long ago, and now thinks it might have been better if he had been "a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas."  His destiny unfulfilled, Prufrock is left with nothing but a sad admission:

 I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

If Eliot's Lovesong tells us about the tragedy of an inauthentic life, other poems point us to the joy that awaits those who have the courage to recapture their personal authenticity.  Two of my favorite poems in this regard are "The Journey," by the wonderful American poet, Mary Oliver, and "Love After Love," by the Caribbean poet, Derek Walcott, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992. When I begin to feel the slightest deviation from my own authenticity, I return to these two poems and always find inspiration.

Mary Oliver

The Journey

              One day you finally knew

              what you had to do, and began,

              though the voices around you

              kept shouting

              their bad advice --

              though the whole house

              began to tremble

              and you felt the old tug

              at your ankles.

              "Mend my life!"

              each voice cried.

              But you didn't stop.

              You knew what you had to do,

              though the wind pried

              with its stiff fingers

              at the very foundations,

              though their melancholy

              was terrible.

              It was already late

              enough, and the wild night,

              and the road full of fallen

              branches and stones.

              But little by little,

              as you left their voices behind,

              the stars began to burn

              through the sheets of clouds,

              and there was a new voice

              which you slowly
              recognized as your own,

              that kept you company

              as you strode deeper and deeper

              into the world,
              determined to do
              the only thing you could do --

              determined to save 

              the only life you could save.

                                   

Derek Walcott

                             Love After Love

    The time will come

    when, with elation

    you will greet yourself arriving

    at your own door, in your own mirror

    and each will smile at the other's welcome,

    and say, sit here.  Eat.

    You will love again the stranger who was your self.

    Give wine.  Give bread.  Give back your heart

    to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

    all your life, whom you ignored

    for another, who knows you by heart.

    Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

    the photographs, the desperate notes,

    peel your own image from the mirror.

    Sit.  Feast on your life.

                                

ZEN AND THE BIRDS OF APPETITE

When I grow weary with the world, I find myself going to the bookshelf that holds my volumes of Alan Watts, Henry Miller, and Thomas Merton, three seekers who would have surely enjoyed each other's company. I find comfort in the mere titles of their books, e.g., Behold the Spirit and Still the Mind by Watts; The Wisdom of the Heart and Stand Still Like a Hummingbird by Miller; Seeds of Contemplation and Mystics and Zen Masters by Merton.  When I pull down any one of these volumes and open its covers, I find myself at peace instantly, knowing that I will soon be transported back to my center, the still place that is my ground of being.

Recently, I returned to Merton's Zen and the Birds of Appetite, a fascinating book that explores the author's study of Zen and its relationship with various structural systems, especially religion.  The title itself raises a variety of questions.  What does Merton have in mind when he refers to "Zen," a word that is extremely difficult to define and is often misused?  Who are the "birds of appetite"?  And what do the birds of appetite have to do with the world with Zen?  These questions are answered by Merton, of course, but the reader must first spend a few moments reflecting on the author's brief opening note, from which the title of the book is drawn:  

Where there is carrion lying, meat-eating birds circle and descend.  Life and death are  two.  The living attack the dead, to their own profit.  The dead lose nothing by it.  They gain too, by being disposed of.  Or they seem so, if you must  think in terms of gain and loss.  Do you then approach the study of Zen with the idea that there is something to be gained by it? This question is not intended as an implicit accusation.  But it is, nevertheless, a serious question.  Where there is a lot of fuss about "spirituality," "enlightenment" or just "turning on," it is often because there are buzzards hovering around the corpse.  This hovering, this circling, this descending, this celebration of victory, are not what is meant by the Study of Zen -- even though they may be a highly useful exercise in other contexts.  And they enrich the birds of appetite.

     Zen enriches no one.  There is no body to be found.  The birds may come and circle for a while in the place where it is thought to be.  But they soon go elsewhere.  When they are gone, the "nothing," the "no-body" that was there, suddenly appears. That is Zen.  It was there all the time but the scavengers missed it, because it was not their kind of prey. 

  At first glance, this opening note always appears cryptic and vexing. Reading it slowly, however, I begin to see where Merton is going with this. He is essentially stating that most of us are "birds of appetite," who are circling the skies constantly in search of a visible form that appears to offer the spiritual nutrition we require. Sometimes it's a  religion or some other belief system; sometimes it's a defined philosophy; sometimes it's a new kind of spirituality or a new "ism."  In almost every case, however, we appear to be seeking sustenance from something that has form and structure -- something that can be easily understood, measured, defined, and labeled by the analytical machinery of our conditioned minds.  And whatever that something is, our egos expect to be enriched by it, to gain something from it, just like the birds of prey that hover around the corpse of a dead animal.

Merton is not calling upon us to abandon all forms and structures; he recognizes that words, rituals, traditions, and other cultural systems are appropriate in certain contexts.  He fears, however, that our increasing obsession with forms is blinding us to the ultimate reality that lies beyond those forms -- the mystical experience of life itself, the formless, nameless, mysterious wonder that underpins everything.

This is where Zen can be useful.  In its purest sense, Zen is simply a heightened state of consciousness that is not dependent upon any kind of form or structure -- religious, cultural, or otherwise.  Since it is neither a form, a structure, nor a system, it does not stand  in opposition to any form, structure, or system.  It is not contrary to any religious or cultural traditions; nor is it contrary to the forms through which those traditions are practiced.  As Merton says, it is "trans-religious, trans-cultural, and trans-formed."  In short, Zen permits one to see and experience the ultimate reality that lies beyond the forms and structures.

If this sounds esoteric -- and I think that it does -- it is probably because Zen, by it very nature, does not lend itself to either systematic thinking or verbal expression. It can only be experienced, personally and directly. Paradoxically, one must be both mindful and mindless -- mindful in the sense of paying attention to what is actually happening in the present moment, and mindless in the sense of not judging and labeling what is happening.  As an old Zen saying goes, "better to see the face than to hear the name."

Zen can be practiced anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances. "Everyday Zen," say the masters, is the best.  At a minimum, Zen returns us to a place where the ultimate reality of life, in all of its complexity, can be fully experienced and accepted, with neither judgment nor resistance. Under the best of circumstances, one might even experience  occasional moments of transcendence.  "To attain this experience," writes Merton, " is to penetrate the reality of all that is, to grasp the meaning of one's own existence, to find one's true place in the scheme of things, to relate perfectly to all that is in a relation of identity and love."