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."