True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.

–William Penn

Zen Life Kit

There’s a lot of talk about Zen these days, but not much understanding about what it is, or how to be Zen. This kit will introduce you to Zen and how you can awaken to it in your life. The kit contains:

• $50 gift card to East-West Bookstore in Mountain View, CA
• Two books, signed by author Karen Maezen Miller

  Karen Maezen Miller calls herself an errant wife, delinquent mother, reluctant dog walker, expert laundress and stationmaster of the full catastrophe. In real life, she is a Zen Buddhist priest at the Hazy Moon Zen Center in Los Angeles. She and her family live in Sierra Madre, California, with a century-old Japanese garden in their backyard.

  Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood
  

  Combining humor, honesty, and plainspoken advice, Momma Zen distills the doubts and frustrations of parenting into vignettes of Zen wisdom. Drawing on her experience as a first-time mother, and on her years of Zen meditation and study, Miller explores how the daily challenges of parenthood can become the most profound spiritual journey of our lives. This compelling and wise memoir follows the timeline of early motherhood from pregnancy through toddlerhood. Momma Zen takes readers on a transformative journey, charting a mother’s growth beyond naive expectations and disorientation to finding fulfillment in ordinary tasks, developing greater self-awareness and acceptance—to the gradual discovery of “maternal bliss,” a state of abiding happiness and ease that is available to us all. In her gentle and reassuring voice, Karen Miller convinces us that ancient and authentic spiritual lessons can be as familiar as a lullaby, as ordinary as pureed peas, and as frequent as a sleepless night. She offers encouragement for the hard days, consolation for the long haul, and the lightheartedness every new mom needs to face the crooked path of motherhood straight on.

  –Amazon description

  Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life
  

  It’s easy to think that meaning, fulfillment, and bliss are “out there,” somewhere outside of our daily routine. But in this playful yet profound reflection on awareness, the compelling voice of a contemporary woman reveals the happiness at the bottom of the laundry basket, the love in the kitchen sink, and the peace possible in one’s own backyard. Follow Karen Maezen Miller through youthful ambition and self-absorption, beyond a broken marriage, and into the steady calm of a so-called ordinary life. In her hands, household chores and caregiving tasks become opportunities for self-examination, lessons in relationship, and liberating moments of selflessness. With attention, it’s the little things — even the unexpected, unpleasant, and unwanted things — that count.

  –Amazon description

• A handmade bookmark
• A small statue of goddess Quan Yin, one of the most universally beloved of deities in the Buddhist tradition. She is the embodiment of compassionate loving kindness.
• A Jacob’s Musical Car Charms to soothe and relax as you navigate the busy highways of life. Chime maker Jacob Sokoloff hand tunes these car chimes to produce a musical sound guaranteed to make you smile.
• A box of Morningstar Incense

Donated by the Harper Family
Value $100

Yet I struggle. When I think back over my childhood and school experiences, I don’t wax nostalgic. The first memories that come to mind are not happy ones. In a perfect storm combining my personality, family milieu, and the outside world, I entered kindergarten absolutely not ready for school or the world.

I was a timid, docile child, perceptive and agonizingly sensitive. I had older sisters who were in school full-time when I was pre-school age, so I had no experience playing with peers and navigating the conflict that arises from this. My first day of kindergarten I was so scared I refused to eat snack and cried. Throughout elementary school I seemed to attract unkind treatment. By the time I entered middle school, my way of dealing with peers was to bury my nose in a book and remain detached. I didn’t socialize much with people in or out of school. My self-confidence measured near zero.

One evening I talked with Hub about a school memory that still causes tears (and if I get started, I recall others that do too). My husband asked, “What would you have wished for?” The six-year-old me had a ready answer: to feel safe.

I have since written in a private post at least 20 events at or near school through my youth that generated a lot of pain then and have the power to still. Now, I know that many people experienced bullying or hurtful incidents in school. My husband has even described memories. However, he (and others) don’t carry the pain as I do, and don’t project it all onto their child’s life. Re-reading my list, I have to remind myself that these incidents occurred over thousands of days of school. I’m certain that many of those days were at least neutral, and just as many were happy days, or contained happy moments. My life wasn’t a torment every single day. My list of injuries strikes me as banal.

So what the hell is the problem?

The pain is not something I nurture; I don’t ruminate anymore over my past injuries. It comes unbidden, rising and engulfing me like a rapid tide whenever I observe my child encountering difficulty (e.g., rejection — whether perceived by her or real). I am transported instantly to childhood and respond accordingly, but this is overlaid with the protectiveness of a mother, and so all my energy goes awry. I personalize Claire’s experiences as my own. It interferes with my ability to be present for her.

Part of this pain is just a parent’s burden. We worry about our children. We ache for them. We want to protect them. Yet I feel that somehow I respond internally in a way that many (most?) other parents don’t. I feel raw and unable to maintain composure. Claire detects and absorbs my anxiety.

Observing Claire deal with her hurt feelings brings a mixture of pain on her behalf, irritation that she’s not tougher, and fear for her well-being in the world. I cannot control what she encounters out there when she starts school full-time this fall. However, I can provide a loving, peaceful, supportive home environment; home can be safe haven. But only if I manage to separate my angst-ridden ego from its Herculean attachment to my past.

So here is my question (italicized below), arising from a Mary Oliver poem, “Wild Geese”:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Tell me your despair. Tell me your childhood school memories. Are they happy or harsh, or a mix? Tell me if they still rule you, and if not, how did you win freedom?

The child is made of one hundred.

The child has a hundred languages,
a hundred hands,
a hundred thoughts,
a hundred ways of thinking, of playing, of speaking.

A hundred, always a hundred,
ways of listening,
of marveling,
of loving,
a hundred joys for singing and understanding,
a hundred worlds to discover,
a hundred worlds to invent,
a hundred worlds to dream.
The child has a hundred languages (and a hundred hundred hundred more),
but they steal ninety nine.
The school and the culture separate the head from the body.
They tell the child:
to think without hands,
do without heads,
to listen and not to speak,
to understand without joy,
to love and to marvel… only at Easter and Christmas.
They tell the child:
to discover the world already there and of the hundred they steal ninety nine.
They tell the child:
that work and play,
reality and fantasy,
science and imagination,
sky and earth,
reason and dream,
are things that do not belong together.
And thus they tell the child that the hundred is not there.
The child says no way. The hundred is there.

–Loris Malaguzzi, Italian Early Childhood Education Specialist, 1994

There are two different types of time. Chronos time is what we live in. It’s regular time, it’s one minute at a time, it’s staring down the clock till bedtime time, it’s ten excruciating minutes in the Target line time, it’s four screaming minutes in time out time, it’s two hours till daddy gets home time. Chronos is the hard, slow passing time we parents often live in.

Then there’s Kairos time. Kairos is God’s time. It’s time outside of time. It’s metaphysical time. It’s those magical moments in which time stands still. I have a few of those moments each day. And I cherish them.

Like when I actually stop what I’m doing and really look at Tish. I notice how perfectly smooth and brownish her skin is. I notice the perfect curves of her teeny elf mouth and her asianish brown eyes, and I breathe in her soft Tishy smell. In these moments, I see that her mouth is moving but I can’t hear her because all I can think is — This is the first time I’ve really seen Tish all day, and my God — she is so beautiful. Kairos.

Like when I’m stuck in chronos time in the grocery line and I’m haggard and annoyed and angry at the slow check-out clerk. And then I look at my cart and I’m transported out of chronos. And suddenly I notice the piles and piles of healthy food I’ll feed my children to grow their bodies and minds and I remember that most of the world’s mamas would kill for this opportunity. This chance to stand in a grocery line with enough money to pay. And I just stare at my cart. At the abundance. The bounty. Thank you, God. Kairos.

Or when I curl up in my cozy bed with Theo asleep at my feet and Craig asleep by my side and I listen to them both breathing. And for a moment, I think- how did a girl like me get so lucky? To go to bed each night surrounded by this breath, this love, this peace, this warmth? Kairos.

These kairos moments leave as fast as they come- but I mark them. I say the word kairos in my head each time I leave chronos. And at the end of the day, I don’t remember exactly what my kairos moments were, but I remember I had them. And that makes the pain of the daily parenting climb worth it.

–Glennon Melton, Don’t Carpe Diem

In asserting: God* exists, we merely bring down overpowering reality to the level of thought. Our belief is but an afterthought.

The transition from obliviousness to an awareness of God, is not a leap over a missing link in a syllogism but a retreat, giving up premises rather than adding one.

–Abraham Joshua Heschel

*or Brahman, Nirvana, Ground of Being, Absolute, whatever word stands for you

The lake — a bowl of glitter!
Winds whisper to water,
waves murmur replies.
A crow flies, snail snared
in its beak.
—–

Rooster crows, broom sweeps.
A car growls to life.
Helicopters thump the sky.
Pigeon wings slap air.
Sirens keen, dogs bark.
Zazen in L.A.
—–

My food – Advil.
My nectar – water.
My balm – sleep.
—–

Now the cushion
Now the breath
Now the work.
Samadhi does not
come in a box or book.
It cannot be imagined
or conjured.
Bells, incense, bows, chants
bring dignity and form
to the formless.
But above all,
it is about the work.
Breath.
Samadhi.
—–

Cresting the mountain,
valley a blanket spread low;
slices of miles served -
feast towards home.

“When you have completed 95 percent of your journey, you are only halfway there.”

– Japanese Proverb

Last week we made necklaces for each other, because on Thursday I head to Hazy Moon Zen Center to sit my first sesshin with my teacher, Maezen, and Nyogen Roshi. We used Shrinky Dinks, and I wrote her message to me and one to her (the handwriting is choppy because I wrote backward so it would read properly on the shiny side.) My favorite color is green and hers is yellow (though trending toward pink), so we’ll feel connected while I’m gone. I’m sure we’ll feel connected regardless, but this is a tangible connection for us both, a sort of talisman. It will be a fine time for Claire and her Daddy to go on special outings. I’ll be home Sunday evening from “Buddhist Summer Camp” (as Hub jokingly calls it) — one step (at least) closer to enlightenment.

Next up: thinking of something cool for dinner. It’s been mild this summer, but today it’s 95F! No complaints here. Hakuna Matata!

But aren’t we all nothing? Everything changes. Human endeavor fades and is forgotten. Eventually we all end up the same place. And there is freedom in knowing and accepting this. Freedom to pay attention to what matters right now, and to enjoy this moment. That’s my bit of insight for today, because it’s late, and I’ve just finished sweeping, mopping, folding, washing, changing sheets, and pilling the cat. Meanwhile, take a peek at what’s been happening.

Claire earned her princess bike because she graduated to being a big girl and uses the potty. Pedaling and steering take concentration!

She also had her first session of swim lessons and loved it, especially her teacher. She’ll have one more week, and then we’ll see.

I did a lot of cutting, gluing, and tying, but Claire decorated with glitter glue and stickers. It moves beautifully in the slightest breeze.

We did this craft awhile back, right after 4th of July!

Claire had me draw the rainbow and face, and she colored the rainbow and decided to use beads for flowers.

“When you practice every day, you come into resonance with cosmic cycles. After many days you can feel the diurnal cycle inside your work; after many moons, the lunar; after years and years the constellations come in. The whole spectrum of vibration, from the slow, lowest tones of turning galaxies to the highest speeds of inner light, becomes your musical realm.”

W. A. Mathieu, The Listening Book: Discovering Your Own Music

Music or meditation? Music as meditation? Meditation as cosmic music?

Life is the flower for which love is the honey.

–Victor Hugo

Updated 7/11 (because comments are closed and I didn’t want to take the time to figure out how that happened): Perhaps the quote makes more sense if it reads, “Life is the toast for which love is the honey.”

“It’s like the story of the ugly duckling. That’s a perfect example of how the dharma works. There was this bird that was born into a flock of ducks, and he was extremely ugly – so ugly he was barely tolerated by the mother duck. He was misshapen, he made funny noises that didn’t sound like a quack and he couldn’t waddle like the others. He looked big and clumsy, so he was constantly being teased and laughed at by the other ducklings. The more he tried to be like them, the funnier he looked, the more they laughed at him, and the more despondent and disillusioned he became. One day, while he was drinking from a pond, he saw another reflection that looked just like him. He looked up and saw another ugly ducking, and another and another. At that moment in time he realized that he wasn’t a duck at all. He was a swan. At that moment of realization he became perfect and complete, lacking nothing. There was nothing he needed to learn to do. There was nothing he needed to imitate. He was already perfect. He already knew how to be a swan. He was born with a swan nature. That’s what realization is — the discovery of what’s already there. It’s the discovery that you are a buddha, perfect and complete, lacking nothing. When you realize it, you are transformed.”

–John Daido Loori

Blessing the boats

(at St. Mary’s)

may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that

–Lucille Clifton

Lift your arm. Let it fall onto your leg. Simple?

Is existence simple?

Consider that there are two massive objects: the earth — the whole big round rock of it — and your relaxed arm. The reality of the earth’s gravitational pull can be experienced in the heavy fall of your arm. Drop your arm again, cosmically this time.

OK, here is a less obvious thought: the mass of your arm is attracting the mass of the earth. Earth-arm force is just as reciprocal as earth-moon force, or in twin stars, star-star force. The earth is falling toward your arm as your arm is falling toward the earth. The attraction is mutual. It’s love.

There’s a binding force in nature, and gravity is its large-scale expression. Every time you drop your hand, or take a step, or hoe the garden, it is the experience of eternal love. Our bones and the earth are lovers; they embrace when we sleep, they mate when we die.

–W. A. Mathieu, The Listening Book: Discovering Your Own Music

At preschool, Claire had a tendency to hurtle into tears if a small thing didn’t go her way, or if she perceived some other child’s behavior as a slight. My response typically had been to croon, hug, and comfort. For instance, one day she brought a stuffed animal with her. In circle time we sing hello to everybody. When we sang hello to her and went on to the next child, she wanted us to sing hello to her animal. When we didn’t, she was more than crestfallen; she was crushed. She burst into sobs, got up, and came running to me.

Claire worried a lot about the other kids not liking her. She thought they might laugh at or make fun of her. (At this age, the kids are only just starting to play together, and she was worried about that?) She was moody. She wanted to control and direct the story of all the pretend play with other kids (and Mommy and Daddy). On the days I was working at the school, she wanted all of my attention. Especially when it came time for me to be in parent discussion.

I began to feel less like a mother and more like her pawn. The neediness in her was insatiable, and her behavior more like a tyrant. I talked with her teacher about it, and she suggested I back off a little. As an example, she talked about the day we didn’t sing hello to her animal. The teacher said, “Your response was to cuddle and reinforce the sadness. But another way to respond is to say, ‘That’s just not what we do here! We sing hello to the students, not all their toys!’ And to help her to lighten up and see it isn’t a big deal.”

And that’s when I realized something. I was teetering on the brink of overcompensating for my own childhood. Not every occasion of disappointment requires deep empathy. Part of my duty as a mother is to prepare Claire to ride with changes, to be flexible. I also had not realized how frightening it must be for Claire to have as much power over me as she did. When she was a baby, she needed all of me, and I gave it. What she needs now, as she moves into the world, is to need less of me. So I began to set more boundaries on what she could have of me. One day she forgot a toy in the car that she wanted for show and tell; it had been her task to remember. When I would not take her back to the car to retrieve it — since we’d gotten to class — Claire gave a world-class demonstration of temper. But I held firm, and she survived and learned a lesson about responsibility.

I continued to heed the teacher’s words that “what you pay attention to grows” and gave more attention to joy than sorrow. Remarkably, within a couple of weeks I, the teacher, and other parents noticed a significant change. Claire began to play with the kids more and less by herself. She participated more in circle time, singing and dancing. She didn’t intrude on me during discussion and instead after snack said, “Bye Mom!” and went outside to play for the last hour. She didn’t attempt to check on me, to get my attention or tell me “something important.”

To sleep, perchance…

When Claire turned three she attempted to stop napping. Her doctor expressed concern about this, because, she said, three-year-olds still really do need a nap. It was true. Claire only slept 9-10 hours at night, and I could see she benefitted from her naps. After a week of refusing to nap, Claire was falling over with exhaustion and emotionally explosive. She also got really sick with a high fever the day before we took a big trip.

Doctor suggested I offer incentives, e.g., “If you nap, you can watch a show after.” (Or whatever special treat might work for Claire.) The bribe of extra t.v. worked until it didn’t — about one week. I tried quiet time, during which she wouldn’t fall asleep but would rock and listen to music for an hour, but this still didn’t provide her the rest she needed. So I returned to the way we handled naps for the first seven months of her life. I rocked her, sang to her, and held her for the duration of the nap, dozing with her.

This worked well. We had preschool two afternoons a week and it was clear those took a toll, but over the school year her stamina increased. And with the steady increase of stamina came the resistance to nap again. I was able to override her refusal most of the time, sometimes by cajoling, other times by threatening (I’ll leave the room and close the door).

When I went away for my getaway weekend, Claire didn’t nap, of course. And when I returned, I allowed this to remain. She is adjusting. She is slightly more tired during the day than she used to be, but it seems a steady state. Her night sleep has increased somewhat, and the quiet hour rejuvenates us both. Best of all, a new world is opening up, the one where we can be unconcerned about “getting home in time” for the nap window. And rather than a two-hour semi-nap sitting up with a crick in my neck, I get one blessed hour to meditate and read while she rocks and listens to music.

So skinny she hula hoops with a cheerio

In April we took our cat to the vet for a blood test, and Claire happened to step on the huge dog scale for fun. The scale read her weight as 28 pounds. I was shocked. It couldn’t be right! She weighed 29 pounds at her annual visit last September!

I’d always fretted about Claire’s nutrition and eating habits. Except for bologna and hot dogs, she eschewed meat. She refuses all forms of milk: cow, soy, almond, flavored, regular, etc. She doesn’t eat much yogurt or cheese. She eats veggies, but only mostly raw. She eats fruit, but only a certain few. Meals involved me asking her what she wanted to eat and trying to please her. Dinners meant cooking something I knew she’d eat, but her whims changed. For awhile I even fed her separately.

Yet here she was weighing less. So we went to her doctor. I learned she had grown taller — 2.5 inches since last September, and since she hadn’t been gaining her growth curve was a little skewed. Her BMI is 13 (what I wouldn’t give for that). Overall, the doctor wasn’t worried because growth occurred. She suggested I take the PAMF Feeding Your Preschooler class for ideas I might use. I came away with a huge list of food Claire does eat and saw that for the most part she is eating well. I learned that my concept of portion sizes for kids was distorted. I learned that we’d be better served if I quit offering her snacks (even salad veggies) to eat while she watched PBS before dinner.

So I relaxed. We have all meals and snacks at table now. I established a firmer schedule and held to it; if she doesn’t eat snack when it’s snack time and decides she’s hungry before lunch/dinner, she just has to wait. I decide what to offer and she either eats or not. I sit with her for all meals (it’s no fun to eat by yourself). I’ve cooked more foods I like despite knowing she won’t probably eat them. Every meal now has bread on the table along with salad, so she’ll get something in her. And guess what has happened? Claire is trying more foods! She has decided she likes pepperoni pizza (previously only cheese would do), cherries, and breakfast sausage.

This combination of releasing the worry and desire to control and establishing parent-driven meal times and menus has freed us. I do my job: offer healthy foods at appropriate times. She does her job deciding whether and what to eat. Talk at mealtimes now focuses on topics other than food, and “encouragement” to eat more. I don’t think she’s gained weight so far, but I see now that I can relax and accept my little petite “Eclaire” and enjoy her. We enjoy each other and our meals more now.

The last step of toddlerhood

I want to keep potty-training stories to a minimum in consideration of Claire’s privacy. Suffice it to say that she’s been ready and resistant for some time, but in part her resistance reflected my own. There have been attempts to use the potty since she was two, but I didn’t push because I feared a power struggle. But last week Claire declared she wanted to wear panties (for the second month in a row, the first being April but she quit after a weekend). And I said okay, and that it meant the changing pad, diaper pail, and all Pull-ups were going away forever. (She hugged her changing pad good-bye.)

The first few days were rocky, and I despaired. But we have persisted, and I’ve devised a way to encourage and reward her daily for her effort and increasing competence. She knows she will be enrolled in swimming lessons now, and that after our trip east she’ll get a “princess bike” she yearns for. For shorter-term rewards, she’s getting smaller things. She wanted pink “tap shoes” (Mary Janes), and so this was her gift for completing one week of using the potty. She also lately pines for “princess bubble bath” and, of all things, an American flag, so her gift for the end of the second week will likely be those. They are small, tangible reinforcements of her success. Not too far in the future I see the sticker chart, small candies, and weekly prizes will fade as this function just becomes a routine in her life.

Momma is all grown up! At least for now, for this age and stage and minute. And Claire? Well, she jumps for joy!

In the past two weeks — one of them being my PMS hell-week, when I normally feel like my skin is too tight, am bone-tired, and am agitated and simmering with anger — I have felt something different. Calm. Centered. Grounded. Like a mountain. Unshakeable. Patient. Bemused by things that normally piss me off (stupid drivers, for example). Toward Claire, I have felt the wide open space of graciousness and being, just spending time with her. When we’re getting ready to go somewhere, I haven’t been in my usual flurry of cranky nagging, and we still manage to get where we need to go. As I wrote to Maezen, Claire has been responsive to this. The other day she said, “Mommy, I like the way you talk to me. You’re magic. I love you.” She’s been very affectionate — possibly also because my absence refreshed us both!

I feel a change in my interaction with my husband too. Rather than becoming snippy and defensive when I’m tired, or when discussions snag, I’ve remained clear and calm. I like him more. Or perhaps I’m encountering me differently?! I asked him this morning if he’d noticed any changes in me, and he admitted he had not, but that he also hasn’t been paying much attention. His head has been at work most of the time, even when home.

But possibly the most convincing (to me) evidence that meditation has helped is that I skipped yesterday completely, and as a result today I have that vibrating, irritable energy. I hear a stridency in my voice when I talk to Claire that has been otherwise absent. Perhaps the “honeymoon” of my mini-vacation is over, or perhaps it’s because meditation really has that much impact. The only way to tell is to keep sitting.

On Writing Poetry

Considering the ways in which so many of us waste our time, what would be wrong with a world in which everybody were writing poems? After all, there’s a significant service to humanity in spending time doing no harm. While you’re writing your poem, there’s one less scoundrel in the world. And I’d like a world, wouldn’t you, in which people actually took time to think about what they were saying? It would be, I’m certain, a more peaceful, more reasonable place. I don’t think there could ever be too many poets. By writing poetry, even those poems that fail and fail miserably, we honor and affirm life. We say “We loved the earth but could not stay.”

–Ted Kooser

I’m sharing this after reading Maezen’s post of today.

In 2006, out of nowhere (and everywhere) a woman contacted me after reading my blog. She had read about my attempts to get pregnant, the miscarriages, the misgivings. She had recently published a book and asked if I would be interested in a complimentary copy. I said yes, although I couldn’t bring myself to read it for quite awhile. Once I was pregnant with Claire, I did read it, devoured it with gratitude and gusto, and I repeatedly returned to that book for comfort and wisdom.

That woman’s name is Karen Maezen Miller. She is a Zen Buddhist priest, a wife, and a mother. I credit her with helping me remain sane and growing into motherhood. After Claire was born and began to exhibit colic, I was panicked and beside myself with agony. Claire wasn’t sleeping. Hub was doing his best but he wasn’t sleeping either. I was terrified I’d do something wrong. Many emails sailed between us — me writing laments, she responding with love. And even though we’d never met, Maezen offered a gift: to come up one weekend and help out with Claire so Hub and I could rest. We talked on the phone to discuss it, and it turned out that this was enough at the time; just knowing the offer was sincere and standing and hearing her voice in the wilderness helped.

I’d seen Maezen subsequently three times; in 2008 she and her daughter visited me and Claire briefly just before Claire’s first birthday; in 2009 at the Mother’s Symposium and 2010 at a one-day retreat. I read her second book. I pondered her thoughts about the importance of having a teacher. And finally, last weekend, I had my first weekend ever away from home and Claire. I drove to Sierra Madre to spend the weekend with Maezen and her family; I also attended a beginner’s meditation class and a dharma talk at Hazy Moon Zen Center. And there it dawned on me that I already have a teacher — Maezen! — and that without realizing it I’d become a student.

It is time to commit. It is time to practice. So I’d like to introduce my new best friend, the “cushion of kindness,” as Maezen calls it. The technical name is zafu. And when I sit on my zafu, this is called zazen. This is where the revolution takes place. Facing a blank wall, alone, silent, counting my breaths, and being awake.

I am not yet in a position of making a formal commitment. That will come when it comes. It is not lost on me that one of my favorite quotes, which I encountered in 1998, is by Hui-Neng, a Zen monastic from the 7th/8th century. “The secret is within your self.” It’s been there all along, waiting for me to look, and see.

The other watershed quote that inspired me to move from Syracuse to Austin in the early 90s was by Sir Edmund Hilary, organizer of a Mount Everest Expedition, and it too rings familiarly as I observe what is changing. The snippet that motivated me I have italicized, but the entire quote is priceless.

“Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his/her way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: What ever you can do, or dream you can; begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

My next trip to Sierra Madre will probably be later in the summer or fall, when they offer a three-day retreat at the center. So, hello world! My name is Kathryn and I am, at last, “abuddha” (awake).