Today, Wednesday August 6th, 9am Pacific / 12pm Eastern is our paid subscribers gathering. Focusing on practice and connection, never recorded, always enriching, you’re invited. I have a reading for us below, and at least one more, which we’ll discuss and use to support your writing. And i’ll have a special announcement regarding our Live Gathering structure this fall. Link at the bottom of this post.
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Tao No. 39
In harmony with the Tao,
the sky is clear and spacious,
the earth is solid and full,
all creatures flourish together,
content with the way they are,
endlessly repeating themselves,
endlessly renewed.
When man interferes with the Tao,
the sky becomes filthy,
the earth becomes depleted,
the equilibrium crumbles,
creatures become extinct.
The Master views the parts with compassion,
because they understand the whole.
Their constant practice is humility.
They don’t glitter like a jewel
but let themselves be shaped by the Tao,
as rugged and common as stone.
-Translation by Stephen Mitchell, 1995.
A peek inside my mesa, my most treasured stone people, always with me when i travel.
This verse held me in an airport recently. Meant to depart at 1140am, then 140pm, then 330pm, 420pm, and finally 530pm, I’m beginning to know all the humans. I’ve ceased arguing with reality, not interfering, asking, or doing. I’m letting myself be shaped by this.
Just sitting, pretending i’m in zazen for a daylong practice, breathing and observing. This is what I’ve chosen. But then I begin observing, and a tiny realization quietly transpires in my being.
Two airline employees sitting, waiting in the wheelchairs they’ll eventually push down the jetway with the passengers on our flight who’ll need them. The snack I offer to one of them, his kind eyes when he says no.
The couple with their grandson; she in her cashmere sweatsuit and freshly blonded bangs, have begun chatting with me. She’s forbidding the nine-year-old from going to pickleball with her and her peers tomorrow because (glancing knowingly in my direction) “he’s not good enough for us.” I wonder how this one comment might live on in this kid.
The gal in her sixties with her patchwork bag, reminding me of Holly Hobbie’s dress, staring into space, munching on seeds, tapping on her phone in a reverie, a cross adorning her chest.
A mom with her three kids, one on her lap, screeching like a pterodactyl—and yet, she’s smiling, rocking right to left no matter what position she’s in. I miss my baby in my arms, can barely hear the screams.
Over to James, asleep, horizontal on the (ick) airport carpeting. When he wakes, he’s drawing in his sketchbook an impossibly detailed drawing saying he wants to strengthen his vision.
Two older women, clearly a couple for years, hushed tones over their iPad reviewing their itinerary excitedly, both in the same sensible quilted walking shoes, in different colors.
These humans are all me. Alternately sitting and seeing, I close my eyes for some time and finally, the announcement to line up, we’ll be boarding, but not before tears stream down my face as I realize.
We are inextricably interwoven. Sounds of applause, relief. As for me, I’m sad to leave this particular zendo.
Learn more about my upcoming book and free workshop in September:
The Altar of Your Heart.
