Adrian: Day 37, Introspective Post # 205

Last night, after Emiko had fallen asleep, I began to work on her present, stringing up the origami figures I had created on the ceiling over the bed. When she woke up this morning, she was very surprised, maybe more so than our cat, who kept swatting at the birds. When she turned the lights on, she was delighted, smiling up at the paper stars and creatures floating above her head. I wish I had taken a picture of her face at that moment. It's one of those images that I wish I could save forever.


Later in the morning, I found myself walking up and down the sidewalk, with my right hand placed over my left fist, placed over my solar plexus. I was briskly walking single file with a group of strangers. Every one of us completely silent. Each person had their eyes plastered to the lower back of the person walking in front of them. I thought we were a strange and silent parade, but the joggers and dog walkers didn't seem too interested in us. I caught myself daydreaming for a moment, and when I snapped out of it, I woke up and began to question my situation. Where am I? What am I doing here? How is it that my life has led up to this? I had no idea. I began to feel lost and alone.  But I felt like I was in a group of lost people.  Suddenly, the line slowed down. The period for walking meditation was over. We all walked back onto the Berkeley Zen Center's grounds, past the steel gate and into the zendo.

The lecture today was given by a jovial and smiling Buddha - Steve Stucky, the co-abbot of San Francisco Zen Center. He was a large, pasty, bald-headed old man.  I could see his legs through his robes, I thought to myself, "I hope that doesn't happen to my body when I get older."  But at the end of his lecture I was thinking, "What an amazing guy. I hope to be more like him when I'm older."

For the second week in a row, the lecture topic seemed to be aimed right at my thoughts, and the feelings I was having. He began the lecture with the question, "Where am I?" He went on to talk about how important it is to continually wake up to life with that question.

He told us the story about the time the forest surrounding Tassajara Zen Mountain Center was engulfed by wildfires, and everyone in the area was evacuated. He and a group of 4 other monks decided to stay, in order to fight off the fires and save what they could of the buildings and structures. He and the other monks worked intensely, sometimes for 6 hours at a time with the fire dangerously close to their eyebrows. In the end, they were able to save much of the Zen Center, but they still lost a few buildings - a couple cabins, a bathroom, and some other structures. He said that he 'grieved' over the losses. After the story, he showed us a humorous comic strip that was published in the newspaper around that time. It featured a monk greeting the fire and talking it out of burning everything down. The fire-fighters were very impressed, and a little child proclaimed that it wanted to be a 'fire-monk' some day.


The account about Tassajara was about the impermanence of life, and how we cling to the things we hold dear. We shouldn't cling, because everything around us is changing and dying. But even so, we can't just give up. Even though our lives and our relationships don't last forever, we should take care of them with the utmost of our ability while we can. What's the best way for me to take care of my life? Probably to just pay attention. To be there for whatever happens to be present in my life, rather than just letting myself float by.

That is something I'm still learning how to do, and it's been a struggle.  But I hope that if I keep at it day by day, eventually I will not be so perplexed by the question, "Where am I?" It is precisely because I take my life for granted that it passes me by and I get confused by it.

The Beatles said, "Living is easy with eyes closed". But, I've noticed that even though my eyes are open, I'm not awake. I have to keep trying though. I have to wake up, again and again.