Student Striver 8
Independant Practitioner Hangs Out Shingle
by Zheng Dao (Fogueira)In case anyone might still be waiting with bated breath to see if the student is still striving, the answer is yes and no, and maybe, and none of the above, like all good Zen answers.
I am, and will eternally be, a student, but I am no longer striving, at least in one sense of the word. My handy dandy Merriam-Webster informs me that to "strive" means
1: to devote serious effort or energy: ENDEAVOR
2: to struggle in opposition: CONTEND
Well, knowing the way to behave and doing what needs to be done requires a serious effort and lots of energy, except when it gets to the point that you make it look easy, as if nothing much is happening at all. That begins to happen the moment you stop flopping around against the inevitable like a catfish with something sharp and metallic in his jaw (something that isn't going to happen any time soon, still working on the vegetarian thing).
The two things I still wanted -- after giving up on the mythologies of romance and success, and having my serious doubts about the continuation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- were to live an exciting stimulating life someplace other than the extremely isolated Middle of Nowhere in serious poverty, and to be something called a "Zen Priest", a "member of the clergy".
In other words, I got the call, and was just waiting around to see how I would respond.
A member of the clergy is the one of the last professions in this difficult world with a license to thrill.
You can be friend, shrink, mommyanddaddy, inspiration, and artist all in one and get paid a pittance for it, unless you happen to be a Zen Buddhist in which the first secret commandment --er, suggestion --Buddhism never commands -- is, "the Dharma does not cost money, and there will not be people in New York City who will pay for it. "
The religious profession appears also to be exempt from immigration regulations. The bad news is you could be a terrorist with Rev. in front of your name. The good news is that if the government mistook you for a terrorist instead of the engaged opposition, you might get over the border alive and live to help another day.
And all of this in the service of the two things as important as grape lollipops and the music of Tom Jobim: morality and spirituality, two entities we don't know about or want to get to know as much as we need to.
Only one small problem to my still unenlightened little mind. Like the Scarecrow before me, I thought I needed a diploma. I wasn't a member of the clergy, I was a medical transcriptionist. I didn't shout "thus have I heard" or "go thou and do likewise" from the hills and valleys. I typed "the heart size is normal, the lungs are clear".
This wasn't holding anyone's hand in time of crisis or helping to make peace in Iraq any time soon. And I couldn't hold anyone's hand because the nearest one was 45 miles away.
I thought I had to have The Venerable or Rev. in front of my name for me to do my job and for people to consider me worthy of doing it.
The two boys who teach me, Shakyamuni Siddhartha Gautama and Jesus of Nazareth, didn't have The Venerable or Rev. in front of their names. Nor did they have Credentials, other than what God gave them, God being another word for Mind, the great continuum which encompasses our own heart and the hearts of all beings.
When those two had something to teach, they went out and taught. Buddha got up from the Bodhi tree where he saw his light and soon after went to the local Deer Park and opened his mouth and told them about refuge. Jesus had his space, some local high ground from which he informed the eternal and heavily laden poor that they would have rest.
It occurred to me, slowly and fitfully the way these things always do, being of little brain like that seeker Pooh, that I did not have to *become* a minister, that I had been one ever since I could remember. Or at least at the age of six when I took some sand and some orange berries and put them in a yellow plastic Monster Bubble dish and placed them on the top of my mother's black lacquer Art Deco hi-fi in a fervent sacrificial offering to Almighty God.
And being so is not a "job", but a reflex, like breathing. Thus, every encounter is with a Sangha or congregation. Even if one only sees one other breathing dude a day and all other encounters are held virtually in front of a screen. These blips and bytes still represent humanity, a globe filled with the hungry for understanding, meaning, comfort and refuge. Perhaps more so, because we are all in our Middles of Nowhere, living in the poverty of fear and inauthenticity, looking for a little love in our hearts.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever more shall be.
So I go forth to my own park and high space, and hope that in my way I can provide refuge, in my life every moment and in these columns now and then.
May all our heart sizes remain normal, and our lungs remain clear. May all our seasons be merry and bright.