I am the canyon.....

Recently, I had the most amazing and unexpected experience while visiting the south rim of the Grand Canyon. We had spent two days in the desert at 107 degrees and were quite relieved and very happy to take a cooler and greener drive through the most amazing pine forests and yellow fields to the south rim of the grand canyon. It was late morning when we arrive. We had received a brochure at the gate of the park which had given us some information explaining the geological reasoning behind the this astonishing slash into the surface of the earth, which we perused before we started the 2.5 mile walk along the rim of the canyon.

I noticed immediately that the park had built no barriers between the walkers and the mile and a half drop to the canyon floor. One could walk out on the most precarious looking outcroppings of rock. I found this trust in basic human survival very refreshing and found myself walking out over the canyon every chance I got. It was while standing on one of these outcroppings staring out into this world of time that I began to feel the most profound sadness. It was thick in my throat and my heart started to feel constricted. As the day at the canyon proceeded, this feeling stayed with me.

I needed to understand what this place was and why it was having this effect on me. Throughout the day, I read all the information cairns which explained why the canyon had occurred. I ran my hands over all the incredibly old rocks provided to touch. I spoke to people to get there impressions and asked questions of others. I was learning how the canyon.. , when the canyon ...,
why the canyon...., but the sadness persisted and nothing I was learning about the canyon seemed to relieve this very physical sensation that I was feeling. In the late afternoon, when we left the canyon to return to the hotel, I was still not resolved.

After a little supper and a short rest, I decided we needed to go back. I was not done with the canyon. I was feeling confused by the effect this place was having on me. We returned to the south rim to watch the sunset. It was the sunset that told me the story of the canyon. As soon as the sun began to descend, and the light values in the canyon shifted, the canyon became alive. It moved and morphed; it lit up and went dark; it's colours turned warm, it's colours turned cold.....red to purple....green and blue. My heart broke open with love for this very old woman. I did not want to move. I wanted to lay down and sleep in the arms of this canyon.

After the sun went down, all the people left. It became very, very dark. The only light was the specks of stars in the sky. It was like floating in the arms of the universe. When I could no longer see, the canyon came alive with sound....birds, animals and bugs... all singing into the darkness. It was in that moment that I remembered my teacher. I could hear him say, "what is this?" I had not yet asked the "what" question. I sat on one of the outcroppings of rock over the canyon, and meditated. I stayed with the "what is this?'..."what is this? This was my only thought and I was immediately filled with confidence that this was finally asking the right question. This would end my confusion. After a while of staying focused on this question, a small gentle voice began to fill my mind. "I am the canyon". "I am the canyon". "I am the canyon". Tears ran down my face. The sadness had erupted and evolved into an understanding about who I was. I was old. I was changing every moment, like the canyon at sunset. I was morphing; constantly morphing. The canyon was always changing and so was I. My sadness was the human sadness of loss, of change, of impermanence. The canyon had a lesson for me. I will be forever grateful for the canyon and the generous lessons of my teacher....thank you, Wayne

What is our life about?

Our aspiration, our calling, our desire for a genuine life,
is to see the truth of who we really are...
that the nature of our Being is connectedness and love,
not the illusion of a separate self to which our suffering clings.
It is from this awareness that Life can flow through us;
the Unconditional manifesting freely as our conditioned body.

And what is the path?
To learn to reside in whatever Life presents.
To learn to attend to all of those things
that block the flow of a more open life;
and to see them as the very path of awakening...
all of the constructs, the identities,
the holding back, the projections,
all of the fears, the self-judgments, the blame...
all that separates us from the letting Life be.

And what is the path?
To turn away from constantly seeking comfort
and from trying to avoid pain.
To open to the willingness to just be,
in this very moment,
exactly as it is.
No longer so ready to be caught
in the relentless spinning mind.
Practice is about awakening to the true self,
no one special to be, nowhere to go.
Residing in the Heart, just Being.

We are so much more than just the body,
just this personal drama.
As we cling to our fear,
and our shame, and our suffering,
we forsake the gratitude of living from our natural Being.

So where, in this very moment, do we cling to our views?

Softening around the mind's incessant judgment,
we can awaken the heart that seeks to be awakened.

And when the veil of separation arises,
Life simply unfolds as it will.
No longer caught in the self-centered dream,
we can give ourselves to others,
like a white bird in the snow.

Time is fleeting
Don't hold back.
Appreciate this precious life.


---an earlier version of this poem appeared in
Being Zen; Bringing Meditation to Life

The "what" question.....

In Ezra Bayda's book, the Zen Heart, I have found some very interesting thoughts about the "what" question. He describes three habitual grooves where most of us get caught spinning in the mental world: analyzing, blaming and fixing. "These conditioned patterns are detours from being the present to reality and taking any one of them guarantees that we will perpetuate the story line of "me".
In his discourse on analyzing, he explains "that through analysis, we can uncover why we think the way we do, why others are doing what they are doing, or why something happened the way it did. We think that this mental understanding is necessary for our comfort. But, most of the time, does asking why on this level give us much real clarity or satisfaction? Don't we usually end up just spinning in circles? Granted, when we uncover our believed thoughts.....those repeated thoughts that we have the habit of taking as reality.....we can sometimes see how these thoughts impact our emotional reactions, but most of the time, the reasons we come up with are, at best, only marginally accurate.
From a practice perspective, the real question is not why but what.....what is my life right now? Or even better, "what is it?" This question moves us out of the mental world into the experiential world. "What is it?" serves as the perfect koan because, like a koan, there is no way you can answer it by thinking or analyzing. In doing so it allows us to experience the spaciousness of the nonconceptual. In fact, the only answer to this question is the actual experiencing of the present moment itself. The only answer is "just this". Right now, ask yourself, What is this?" To answer, simply feel the breath going in and out. Feel the air in the room. Feel the tension in your face. Feel the energy going through your body. Experience a felt sense of the overall body posture. Experience "just this"....the simple quality or texture of the moment. Naturally, when difficulties arise in life, we look for answers, because we prefer the comfort of black and white thinking. We continue to hold on to the notion that we can figure life out; yet, the fact is, we'll never figure life out by asking why. Most often, we just don't know."
The second equally fruitless detour is blaming. Ezra's passage explains the this sometimes very subtle way of escaping groundlessness is very compelling and is much like an addiction. He says that if we look closely, we will see that blaming is primarily a defense against feeling the anxious quiver of our experience. "The practice countermeasure to blame is to directly face the pain we are trying to avoid. this is not mental process" it involves feeling the pain, residing in it, as the physical reality of our life. I'm talking about doing something very straight forward, yet very difficult, which is to cut through the story line of blame and instead stay in the present moment of our experience. We simply do not want to do that. To enter the present moment of hurt, ask yourself what that hurt actually feels like physically. Remember, the word "hurt" is just a concept. Again we are back to the question "what is this?"
The final detour from reality in Ezra's book is fixing. "All of us need to become aware of our strategy of escape, our own specific patterns of trying to "fix" our experiences. The quality of perseverance is of key importance, because we have to learn to just stay, even when our experience is not pleasing us in the ordinary sense. Put simply, the solution is never about fixing, but rather about staying....especially staying with the fear of helplessness and the loss of control."

As I am loving the "what" question in my life and am seeing the great potential in this koan, I will be writing more on this subject. I hope that you will enjoy this fresh approach to the present moment.

A person who falls on the earth.....

A person who falls on the earth, stumbling on a stone, will stand up by means of the same earth they fell on. You complain because you think the earth is the problem, having caused your fall. Without the earth, you wouldn't fall, but you wouldn't stand up either. Fall and standing up are both great aids given to you by the earth. Because of mother earth you can continue your practice. You are practicing in the zendo of the great earth, which is the problem. Problems are actually your zendo.

Shunryu Suzuki