Crossing Nebraska

Regular readers might recall that my partner is a Christian minister. As such, we often find ourselves discussing whatever Bible passages she might be reflecting on for an upcoming sermon. This past week the lectionary included a reading from the Gospel according to Luke. When she asked me what I thought of it, I immediately saw its abundant potential for initiating Buddhist/Christian dialogue. The passage is Luke 12:32-38. I’ll quote it in its entirety before reflecting upon it further: 32  “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33  Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 35  “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; 36  be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so t...

Some years ago I had the good fortune to stumble upon a weeklong meditation retreat in the wooded Uplands of Indiana led by a teacher whom I’d never heard of before. With the exception of its duration and the fact that it was in a natural setting and in the Soto Zen tradition, I had no idea what to expect. My job, simply enough, was to show up and remain open to experience. Anyway, after arriving and taking one look at the schedule posted on the door of that little rustic cabin turned zendo – the fourteen daily periods of seated meditation (zazen) separated by brief periods of walking meditation (kinhin) – the first experience that I opened up to was that of fear! Fourteen fifty minute periods of zazen each day! Could I physically take it? Could I mentally take it? I didn’t know!       The schedule struck me as dauntingly unrelenting – nothing but zazen and kinhin interspersed with just enough time to eat and sleep and attend to the barest of personal hygien...

“Well, this will just make room in your life for someone better to come along.” Those words closed around my heart like a fist. Better? Better than the woman I love? Better than my wife? Yes, I felt deeply hurt, and, yes, I felt more incredibly betrayed than I think I could possibly feel, but a love that’s real is not blown away by such winds of circumstance, is it? What did “better” even mean, anyway? Do we have some mental checklist of criteria, both conscious and unconscious, the satisfactory completion of which signifies love – with more checked boxes corresponding to a “better” love, and “best” corresponding to some theoretically perfect love in which all possible criteria are checked? If that were so then love would merely reside in the mundane realm of convenient transactions: I love you as long as your actions please me. I love you as long as you give me what I desire. I love you as long as you continue to fulfill my needs. If that is the true nature of love, I pondered, then...

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile you’ve probably noticed my penchant for the word seamlessness with regards to ultimate reality. Seamlessness, to me, conveys a deeper reality than does interconnectedness . Whereas interconnectedness implies individual entities in relationships of mutuality, seamlessness conveys a reality beyond separation, beyond individuation, beyond compartmentalization. When I first moved into the neighborhood where I presently live, none of the backyards in the immediate vicinity were fenced; they all just kind of blended together into one big tree-filled expanse. It was beautiful. Over the years, though, as old houses got torn down and new ones were built and as people with young families and dogs moved in, more and more fences went up and less and less of that expansiveness remained. The seamlessness that had once been so readily apparent is now almost completely parceled up into little areas of separateness. This is precisely what our ordinary c...