Holding Things Close & Letting Them Go ...

Tomorrow I will face another birthday, and I must admit that I've been been repeatedly announcing to any who will listen lately that I'm going to be 70 so that I will actually believe it!  These decade birthdays are tricky.  As soon as you land on one, you begin to look back at the others:  reminiscing with yourself about what it felt like to be 50, 60, or god knows, even 40.  I swear that I can't go back beyond 40.  That seems too far...  It becomes pretty dim, like the swirl of chaotic memories I have been navigating lately in my book.
Yesterday I had a surprising conversation with a young woman in her late thirties, I'm guessing, who was actually reflecting on how cool she thought older people were.  They in fact didn't seem old to her.  And I started to think about the delights that come with the increased freedom as you get older.  Freedom to think your own weird thoughts without apology, freedom to just up and go to the movies at the last moment, spend a lot of your day in your pajamas, eat left-over chicken for the third time, or better yet, splurge on an expensive sushi dinner!  Yes, freedom comes, and slowing down comes, and reflections galore.  You spend a lot of time in your head; you settle in there and begin the process of getting to know your elder self.  You don't worry -- and this I told the young woman with great pleasure -- about the things you're NOT going to do in your life.  There is nothing to prove to yourself anymore, except perhaps that you have the desire and capacity to take good care of yourself, and open your heart to others.  You worry less about going out there and changing the wrongs of the world.  You stay close to home.
Speaking of staying close to home, I am acutely aware of the things I hold close, as I remain close to home.  They are, for starters:  those I love, and my cats.  And finding truth.   My Zen calendar had a great message for me today -- it said:  "Love of the truth puts you on the spot."  Yes sirree, it does!  I recently experienced one of the great noble truths when I forged ahead to uncover a truth that was not going to be forthcoming, and I experienced suffering.  Yes, there was hurt in my heart because for some reason I assumed that everyone in the world held the same conviction as I that telling the truth is an inherently good and necessary thing to do as long as we watch our intentions, of course, and not speak "truths" with destructive or harmful wishes.  What I discovered in this last experience was that I was not in control (yet again!), and that there would be things inside the heads of others that I would never know, no matter how much I persevered in the cause of truth.  What do you do then?  Well, of course you let it all go, and breathe, and put one foot in front of the other to engage in the array of opportunities that present themselves to you.  Everything IS uncertain, and some of what comes can be unpleasant, BUT also some of what shows up is pure magic, a tiny fragment of time that sets your heart stirring, like a little house finch gobbling up seeds on your roof, or listening to the words of Alice Walker.  Small moments, big expanded feelings...
We must let go and show up, or show up and let go, whether we're 70 or 40, really.  I do think that as we age we have an easier time with this letting go stuff.  Is it that we just have less energy to wage all our battles?  Or ... that we are in fact wiser?  I like to think the wisdom plays a part because that just sounds better to me! I've always loved the idea of being wise.  And it is wise to see that all the varied and uncertain phenomena we meet make for a great adventure.
Tonight I will share a dinner with a number of people I hold very dear, and have gratitude for this array of good friends and family.  If you don't have love and closeness in your life, you miss the point of this human journey, I am positive.  And the more you see the ephemeral nature of loving relationships, the more extraordinary and beautiful they become.  As I get older I promise to pause so I can really see what is in front of me, to be held with care, and to express my own true nature.  I cannot do this if I stay entangled in struggle, unable to let go... I'm going to remember the words of the wise Thai forest monk Ajhan Cha who said in so many words that the more you let go the more happiness will be yours.
And tomorrow I will get in my car and drive north to the ocean to be in my little beach house and work for a week on revisions of my manuscript, and I will bring with me my beloved cats and the affection of those I have had the fortune to call loved ones.  That sounds like a most lovely prospect, and I'm sure all of this will dull whatever angst I have been carrying about becoming old.  Simple as that........

Drops of Rain

  Was it something that was said yesterday or just listening to the rain falling on my roof on this grey Sunday morning that makes me want to talk about impermanence?  About the truth of everything mutating moment by moment in our lives and continually becoming ... something different.  Rain, the food I eat, and the cat who perches on my desk one day looking right at me and today with his back to me ... It is clear that nothing is solid.  The earth is different this morning than it was yesterday, my body has changed because I ate salmon and potatoes and beet salad at a party last night, and the cat ... well, cats are enormous mysteries, aren't they?  Yesterday he was interested in staring me down as I wrote, and today not so much.  Beautifully different.
   When you admit to the not knowing, to the mystery, it makes the world a fascinating place, one in which you can be always curious.  There is a lightness and a freedom in that.  And in being curious you will have realizations, you will gain wisdom and understanding.
   I sat yesterday at the Green Dragon Monastery - aka Green Gulch Farm - north of San Francisco on a deeply misty morning along with a handful of my fellow Zen Hospice volunteers in order to consider the value of sangha, or community.  We sat on dark pillows and heard the rain on the roof of our yurt and our teacher said with a sly smile, "it's all about impermanence."  He was repeating something Suzuki Roshi told a student, I think, which pointed to the blurring of boundaries between inner and outer, the fluid character of existence, and the interdependence of all beings.  And on this peaceful day yesterday we were urged to carry this understanding of impermanence into our work with the dying, not just because we are dealing with death (certainly a symbol of impermanence), but because we as witnesses to death become part of the landscape of arising and falling away, coming and going, as we show up without our agendas and plans.  Agendas actually don't work here.  Remember:  we are not in control, and everything changes.  We are  now free to be shown the mystery of the end of life.  The dying will actually teach us how to do it...
   Last night I attended the 80th birthday party of a very dear friend, a woman I have known for forty years or so.  I watched as she accepted with grace the speeches of her loving daughters, and all the raised champagne glasses toasting her wonderfulness, and I marveled at her snow white hair and the bright light that shone in her face.  Though her fine snow white hair has shown up recently, the bright light from her spirit and heart has always been there, or perhaps it is coming through more clearly now that she manifests a certain transparency.  As we become older, I believe we're consciously and unconsciously shedding our skins, our stuff, our thoughts, and the surface of our bodies and our lives becomes less hard and tough, and more translucent.  We become more who we really are.
And for that I am very grateful.
Proud.
And more myself.


From Peter Matthiessen's Snow Leopard:

"... there is no real edge to anything, that in the endless interpretation of the universe, a molecular flow, a cosmic energy shimmers in all stone and steel as well as flesh."