Job? What Job?

A little less than nine months ago I picked up the 2012-13 academic year.  As of 9:30pm last night, I set it down.  Grades submitted, meetings attended, some socializing with colleagues enjoyed, it is now officially summer break.

I'm often amazed at the speed with which I can go from one thing to the next.  In the blink of an eye, all the concerns and worries, frets and frustrations of the job just simply evaporate.  What got done, got done.  What didn't, didn't.  And that's all there is to say about it.

And even that's too much to say, because to tell the truth, I'm already thinking about a day in the yard and garden, and the birds are singing and the sun is breaking over the treetops and the air is warm and the breeze is calm (and no trace of classes and discussions and meetings and grading remains).

Ah!

Are There Better or Worse Ways to Die?

I recently came across a few photos from the factory collapse in Bangladesh showing some of the victims.  I am reminded every time I drive the Interstates around Chicago just how many people have died so far this year in traffic-related incidents in Illinois, the figure prominently displayed on over-the-road signs.  Any number of organizations list the number of deaths in a year from AIDS, hunger, cancer, heart disease, suicide, guns, alcohol, bullying, and even wisdom teeth removal.  Practically every hurricane, tsunami, tornado, heat wave and snowstorm has a death toll attached to it.

Let's face it: there are all kinds of things in the course of a day, week, year or lifetime that can kill you, and one of them has your name on it.  Some of them are natural, some of them are human-caused.  And if somehow you escape a definable agent or situation as the cause of your death, in the end, age itself, with the increasing deterioration of the body, will seal the deal. 

There's no guaranteed life expectancy that announces itself with the cut of the umbilical cord, either.  Some live a minute, some an hour, some a day, some a week, some a month, some a year, some a decade, and some a century.  It's hard to make sense of a better or worse time to die.  After my friend died a month ago, I was walking in a grocery store and saw an old, enfeebled man making his way with a walker.  "At least Dan will not have to deal with old age," I thought to myself.  Of course, he will never enjoy a retirement, either.

None of this overstates the case.  Nothing in this is pessimistic.  Just the facts, folks.

It's at this point that I find myself settling into practice: what is this? what is this birth-and-death?  I didn't ask for birth, I don't ask for death, yet here they are!  There's no escaping this life; there's no escaping this death.

If you think you have an answer, you're fooling yoursef.

Are We Missing Something? Well, Yes!

I came across this in the Huffington Post "Religion" section a couple weeks ago:

All main religious groups in France, with the exception of the Buddhists, have spoken out against marriage reform.

Why should this be the case?

I've got a few ideas why, one kind of straightforward, the other perhaps not so much.

The straightforward one is that Buddhism has historically never considered marriage to be more than a civil affair.   It would be about as appropriate for a Buddhist, as a Buddhist, to have a position on marriage statutes and provisions as it would be for a Buddhist, as a Buddhist, to have a position on car registration requirements, zoning ordinances, emissions standards, medical licensure, mining policies, and interment regulations.  Simply put, to the Buddhist mind, marriage regulations are best left to the prevailing social customs, demands, needs and expectations, and societies and governments will work those out in all the usual ways they have at their disposal.

The other reason is not so straightforward, but does, I think, go much deeper toward understanding the current religious brouhaha surrounding marriage equality.  Simply put, unlike its monotheistic friends, Buddhism paints no pictures of what an ideal life would look like.  There is no one privileged social formation, one special kind of governance system, a particularly enlightened economic structure or even a determinate familial or personal lifestyle that, as such, trumps all others. 

The root defilements of greed, anger and confusion yank at us the same whether we are gay or straight, progressive or conservative, monarchist or republican, capitalist or communist, parents or childless, and nothing that would seek to turn us into one or the other or elevate one and debase the other could possibly change that.

On the flip side, the prospect of waking up to our True Self is the same whether we are gay or straight, progressive or conservative, monarchist or republican, capitalist or communist, parents or childless, and nothing that would seek to turn us into one or the other or elevate one and debase the other could possibly change that.

I admit I'm painting with a broad brush here.  There are certainly segments of Christianity that are more than willing to extend the "neither slave nor free, Gentile nor Jew, woman nor man" further to "neither gay nor straight, black nor white, rich or poor," etc.  Conversely there are segments of Buddhism that sound very much like 60's-style activists retrofitted with a Buddhist framework who, as such, aim to create certain determinate social structures and eliminate others.

Nevertheless, "sangha-formation" has always marched to a very different beat from "people-formation," and, from the looks of things, it would seem to be keeping to that beat today.

There is No Normal

I have a dear friend in the travails of a divorce.  Sometimes he calls me up to vent, and sometimes he calls me up in the hopes of just getting a break from the rollercoaster ride he's on.  The other day, he mentioned that he was doing his best to get back to normal.  His sleep was off, since he would lie awake at night ruminating on what the soon-to-be-ex had just said or done.  Because his sleep was off, his exercise schedule was off.  Because his exercise schedule was off, he was feeling more tired at work and would find ways to nap.  You get the picture.

My first thought was to assure him that things would eventually return to normal, that he would soon enough (a couple years, maybe, but soon enough) find that he could take the by-then-ex's words and actions in stride, etc.  I soon thought better of it, though, because there's a simple truth that is being shown to him quite clearly now, a simple truth which is everywhere operative, even when we don't perceive it: there is no normal.

There is no normal.  Of course we know that on some level.  Everything is in a state of flux, conditions are perpetually changing, everything responding to, reacting to, acting in concert with, arising in conjunction with, everything else.  And, of course, we often wish that just weren't so, that we could hold on to something for a while longer, that the target would just stay put for a few minutes, that our game plan might be given half a shot at succeeding.  And so, thus it is that we tread the gerbil wheel of dukkha, working up a sweat, going absolutely nowhere.

So I suggested he not fight it.  When he was tired, he should nap and not worry about whether he worked out that day.  When he was lying awake in the middle of the night, he should just know that this is what is means to be getting divorced.  When he had a good night's sleep, he shouldn't read any trends into it, but just enjoy a day well-rested.  I said it was just like sitting: some days you're focused, some days you're not, some days you have pain, some days you don't.

He got it, and he old me he was appreciative of that reminder.  I just need to remind myself from time to time! 

Sonder

Here's one I'd never heard of before:

"Sonder" - n. - the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk."

I had experienced it before; I just didn't know it had a name.  

Sometimes, when riding the CTA, for instance, or driving down the highway, it occurs to me that everyone around me is playing his or her own tune, marching to be beat of his or her own drum, wrestling with his or her own demons, and aiming at his or her own happiness.  I see them for a 40-minute ride or for a quick pass on the interstate, and that is all the connection we will likely ever have.

Sometimes the connections have a bit more of a lifespan.  I have students a semester at a time.  I have neighbors that might be around a year or ten or more.  I have had playmates, classmates, roommates and housemates.  I have friendships going back over thirty years, colleagues going back over twenty, and fellow sangha members going back over ten.  In the end, whether for a day or a decade, the connection is one of many, has its stops and starts, and may have greater significance for the other person(s) or for myself.  I may factor you more into my narrative than you factor me into yours, for instance.

For the most part, though, the basic truth remains: I am on some irreducible level but a bit player in others' scripts as they are but bit players in mine.  If I'm lucky, I might get involved with some one person enough to use the term "spouse" and a few people enough to use the term "friend."  Beyond that, I might have a few score of acquaintances, some few hundred people I recognize by sight, and, well, that's about it out of a lot of almost seven billion on the planet.

The definition above is taken from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.  I have to say, I don't perceive it as a sorrow but more as the basis of a quiet joy.  You see, it is precisely because I don't know you very well that I can feel honored to be let in on your life.  When I realize I really don't know what's going on with you, I can find in you a source of fascination and growth.  Whatever you let me in on becomes a gift, not just a matter of course, and you remain a source of mystery for me all the same because there is so much more that I am as yet (or can ever really become) aware of.

Like the silence which make sound, sound, and like the amorphous background that makes objects, objects, our everyday anonymity and obscurity is that which makes friends, friends and lovers, lovers and fellow travelers on the Way, brothers and sisters.

Sighs Too Deep for Words

At work I was invited to be a member of a committee formed earlier this academic year, the Inter-Religious Council on Dialogue and Spirituality.  Our job description is both simple and not-so-simple:

The mission of the Inter-Religious Council on Dialogue and Spirituality is to support and advance religious diversity in Valparaiso University under the auspices of the Provost’s Office. To this end, the Council regularly assesses resources, services, and needs relating to religions and religious communities at the University and makes recommendations to individuals, groups, committees and offices who can take appropriate action.

It's simple, because it kind of makes us look like a brokerage firm, lining up needs with ways and means to satisfy them.  It's not-so-simple, because supporting and advancing religious diversity at Valpo is a task that ranges from the obvious to the ambiguous to the contradictory. 

Here's a case in point.  At our meeting this past week, we were thinking through ways of highlighting the holidays and observance days of the various religions represented on campus.  Now Valpo has an established Morning Prayer period in the class day, and a Protestant Christian service is held in the main chapel at that time.  I suggested that one way of accomplishing some religious diversity goals might be to have a different tradition lead the Morning Prayer on one of their respective holidays, a Jewish service for, say, Yom Kippur or a Buddhist service for Vesak.

I was taken aback at the push-back the idea received from one of the committee members.  He wasn't terribly articulate on his reasons, but he was quite animated in his objection.  "We cannot allow this to happen!" he repeated several times, each time more vociferously than before.

There is some back-story here.  Valpo has maintained a close historical and cultural, though not administrative or financial, tie to the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LC-MS) since its purchase by the lay Lutheran University Association in 1925.  Although independent of the LC-MS, the campus chapel has been understood to be an LC-MS chapel, with an LC-MS University Pastor until quite recently when a female pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) was appointed as a University Pastor as well.

Here's the problem: LC-MS folks are prohibited from praying with anyone else, even another non-LC-MS Christian.  Pastor Cox's appointment at Valpo was a cause for scandal in some LC-MS circles, and LC-MS pastors have been chastised for taking part in interfaith services in the wake of 9-11 and in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings.

I don't know what prayer is that it would be something one should be either prohibited from or skeptical about doing with others.  I get that the words one uses may not equate with the words another person uses, but I don't believe so much rides on the words that they should be something that divides rather than possibly unites us.  Even within the Christian tradition there is a recognition of the inadequacy of the expression of our prayer: "[W]e do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words." Rom 8:26  I have to wonder whether the inverse obtains, that when we assert that we (alone) know how to pray as we ought, the Spirit stops acting on our behalf.

We're funny creatures, we humans.  We are part of something bigger than we will ever comprehend with our thought and language and science and scholarship.  We know this on some level, but in our attempts to talk about it or address it, we bumble along, with nothing sounding quite right.  Silence is best, of course, but sometimes we do have to speak.  Let that speech come from the depth of our realization, not from a book or symbol or catechism.  Let it be fit for the occasion, right and proper for the audience.  Let it start when it needs to start, and end when it needs to end.  Then, perhaps, all our singing and dancing and talking and praying will become the voice of the Dharma, the speechless sigh of the Living God, if you will, in all its wonder and beauty and challenge and awe.

Resurrection 101

So the other evening after a sitting, a new Center regular, a young guy in his early 20's, said that over the weekend he and his folks had been trying to figure out this whole Easter business.  Seems they'd never been terribly religious, and they didn't quite know what it was all about, so they turned to Wikipedia for answers.

I found myself entering into the discussion the way an addict goes after his drug.  I don't know why, but I feel some kind of internal obligation to put the very best spin on most religious traditions.  In the end, I acknowledge and respect that these have at their core deep elements of truth and the ability to move people in the direction of compassion and selflessness, and I am eager to keep them from being caricatured and stripped of their power.  And so, thinking I could do better than Wikipedia (not hard), I held forth, dismissing the zombie/resuscitated corpse view and steering him instead toward a more nuanced understanding of the resurrection.

Stupid me.

I should have just kept it to one line: "Keep practicing, and after you've practiced long enough, you'll understand everything you need to know about it."