by David Guy
“I’m totally fucking petrified,” she said. “Pardon my French.”
“Just show up,” Jake said. “That’s the only important thing.
We’ll take care of you.” Exactly what I’d said. When Jake said it, she listened. Josh’s feelings about Jake were complicated. On the one hand, way back when he used to come and visit in Bar Harbor, he called him Uncle Jake, used him as a confidant and mentor far more than even I knew. On the other hand, he thought I’d gone way overboard and that Jake had led me into it. When he was in college, in particular, he’d had an anti-Jake phase, as his father got weirder and weirder.
Now he seemed reconciled to the man. His father was weird and he wasn’t fighting it anymore. Maybe, if this new center became a reality, I’d be downright respectable.
One thing I admired about Jake—and hoped to emulate—was that he never pushed practice on anyone. He was as helpful as possible if the other person brought it up. But if it didn’t come up he never so much as mentioned it.
The wish to practice has to come from inside, he always said. Otherwise it won’t take.
“What’s this your father tells me about your being burnt out?” Jake asked. I’d filled him in on our earlier conversation. “You didn’t sound burnt out at the bar.”
“I don’t know that it’s burnt out. That might be Dad’s term. But there’s something weird. Something wrong.”
He went on to describe his malaise. The whole thing with Mitzi was a repeat of previous performances. He was doing his work, still loved movies, but felt a sense of repetition in that too. The inevitable crap bothered him more than ever, and he dismissed it too harshly. Even when he liked movies, he praised them with the same words he’d used before.
“There are only so many ways you can say something’s good,” he said. “That’s a reviewer’s nightmare.”
“Is somebody keeping track?”
“I am.”
“People don’t remember what they read in the paper. Just the feeling from it.”
“I know. I worry about it too much.”
In the midst of that conversation we ordered and got our food, blazing hot—the chef was known for his spices—an absolutely delicious pork tenderloin for me, with yams and beans and apples. We had a second beer. It was an odd prelude to a retreat.
“I think you ought to write a novel,” Jake said.
“A novel? Who reads them?”
“A screenplay. Something. Write a book about the movies. What you were saying out there.”
“I’ve said all that in columns.”
“A book is different. It’ll reach a different audience.”
Again, that was one of those things that, if I had said it, would have sounded like a father’s hectoring. From Jake it had a different tone. But you could tell, by the way Josh paused, and the energy that came into his posture—even by the way he resisted—that he’d thought of this himself. Jake was telling him to do what he already knew to do. He needed someone to tell him.
“When would I do it?”
“You’ve got to have time in your day. Movies don’t show all the time.”
“It might take energy from my other work.”
“Your other work isn’t using you up.”
“My reviews might suffer.”
“I think they’d be better. Enriched by what you were doing.”
“My life would get more complicated.”
“Only for a while. And you’d have control of that. There wouldn’t be any hurry.”
“What if it didn’t work out?”
“Then it didn’t. Who would know? You’ve still got the other job.”
Everything Josh came up with Jake had an answer for; there was a certain rightness to what the man was saying, and Josh knew it.
Josh was definitely energized. His whole affect was different.
“Or maybe I’m full of shit,” Jake said. “Who knows? It’s just an idea.”
The final statement that drove the argument home.
Dessert at that place was as good as the dinner. Jake had some kind of chocolate concoction—I didn’t catch the name—that may finally have satisfied his craving. I had one bite, and it satisfied mine.
The bar as we walked out was as jammed as the night before. Jess could only blow us a kiss as we left. She gave Josh a big smile.
“I want you to think over what we talked about in there,” Jake said out on the sidewalk.
“I will,” Josh said.
“There’s a moment in your life when you’ve got to jump into the dark. Otherwise things go stale.”
“Yeah.”
“Stay open to the situation and you’ll find it.”
Jake gave Josh a hug. He barely came up to his chest.
“Don’t go too nuts looking at that wall,” Josh said.
“You’re late with that,” Jake said. “I’m way over the deep end.”
“Then keep an eye on my old man. He’s the one I’m worried about.”
“He’s about to go.”
There was a statement to ponder.
14
OF ALL THE THINGS I dislike about the work I do—if it is work, which I often doubt—wearing robes is right up there. I don’t wear them often, just on occasions when we have a retreat or a teaching weekend. I always feel as if I’m playing dress-up, like when I strapped on my six shooters and ten-gallon hat as a kid. I feel like a fraud. It’s my problem, of course. I’m just playing a role, in a particular situation.
I’d better get used to it.
The thing about Jake was that he never seemed to be wearing robes. He had them on, undeniably, and there are all kinds of adjustments you have to make about sitting, walking, bowing, everything we do. But he seemed entirely comfortable. He wore even the most elaborate robes in a relaxed way. They looked as natural on him as the jeans and sweatshirt he wore around the bike shop.
We had some senior students taking care of logistics, like sesshin opening instructions, so all we had to do was show up. We had picked up our stuff from the Y and walked up to Madeleine’s, me carrying the suitcases and Jake the sacks that held our cushions, went straight to the bedrooms and changed. Jake had a glint in his eye when I stopped by his room, a big smile on his face. He took delight in the weirdest things. You’d have thought we were headed for the movies, or a ballgame.
We stopped in a small room beside the meditation hall, lit some incense at an altar and made our way in, Jake offering the incense at the large altar in the hall. There was only the dimmest background lighting, the altar candle flickering against the wall. Jake did three floor bows, and we took our places.
The zendo—this long, wide room that had once been a living room—was beautifully arranged. There were cushions around the outside walls; down the middle were adjustable room dividers that gave us more wall space, though we needed it only for some part-time people, like Jess. The tradition in Soto Zen, ever since Bodhidharma supposedly stared at the side of a cave for nine years, is that we gaze at a wall, differentiating us from all other forms of Buddhism (there’s an important distinction for you). But on that first night it was our custom to face the center, holding our heads up but gazing toward the floor. It was the first sitting in what would be seven days of sitting and walking.
And it was the only sitting during which Jake spoke. Fifteen minutes in, he cleared his throat.
“When I say good-bye to someone before sesshin,” he said, “I say it as if it may be the last time.” I thought of the way he had hugged Josh outside the restaurant, slapping his back, looking into his eyes. “As if I’m sitting on my deathbed, that person walking out the door. Sesshin is like death, it’s the best preparation for death. Also the best preparation for life.
“For seven days we’ll be apart from our normal life. Whatever is going on out there, whatever is bothering you, troubling you, exciting you, there’s nothing you can do about it. We’ll drop everything as if it doesn’t exist, see what it’s like just to be here as a sitting, breat
hing body.”
He didn’t say anything for a few minutes—I thought he was through—then spoke again.
“Years ago, I was in a little town in Mexico. I had just gotten back from Japan, was bumming around for a while, went down there from California. In the middle of the town, every morning, an Indian woman came to beg in front of the church. She was tiny, not much over four feet, and seemed old, in her sixties or seventies. She would sit in front of the church and hold her right hand in a begging position, like a mudra, staring in front of herself. I stood and watched her for minutes at a time. Her back was straight. Her posture was strong. I never saw her move.
“If you gave her money, she looked up and beamed, radiantly. She was full of life. But she never asked for money. She never asked for anything. She just sat, while life went on all around. Somehow, sitting there, she took part in the fullness of life.
“I had been in Japan for years and knew people who were quite impressed with their ability to sit, but had never seen anyone sit better than that woman did every day. She wasn’t a Buddhist. She had no training. Just a human being, who in all her years had learned something about life. So in the spirit of that woman, with no idea if anything is going to show up in our hands, let’s sit for the next few days. Let’s ask nothing of life, and see what it offers us.”
I had never heard that story before. In all the years I’d known him, he’d never used it. I couldn’t imagine why. It was perfect.
For another twenty minutes we sat in the flickering candlelight, then the timekeeper rang the bell, we did some bowing and chanted the Refuges, then Jake and I went up to our rooms. About half of the group would be heading home. Others would scatter around the building in sleeping bags. We’d start again at six.
The rooms where we were staying were quite large, included dressers, writing desks, queen-sized beds. Each had its own bathroom. It made you wonder why we’d been staying at the Y, though Jake said from the start he wanted to keep some distance from Madeleine. But after the narrow metal bed frames, sagging mattresses, communal showers, smells of disinfectant, this seemed like paradise.
I often don’t sleep well on the first night of sesshin, but I conked out immediately that night, didn’t wake up until somebody came around with the wake-up bell at five fifteen.
I love the energy of the early morning. The hard time on retreat—if I’m going to have one—is late afternoon, when I’ve been in that little room for hours and will be there for hours more. But the early morning, with sunlight streaming in the windows and birds singing their morning songs, my body slowly growing used to waking life, seems the perfect part of the day for zazen. I could sit forever.
That day, of course, I had the dharma talk looming at ten thirty. It sat like an abyss waiting to swallow me. But there was literally no way I could prepare except by sitting, so that’s what I did.
After two morning sittings—with ten minutes of walking in between—we had our long service of bowing and chanting, about twenty minutes, followed by breakfast, which was served oryoki style, as we sat at our places. Darcy had flavored the oatmeal with what seemed to be almond butter and maple syrup, and Jake took a second bowl, which I’d almost never seen him do. The fruit bowl was also elaborate: apples, pears, bananas, grapes, peaches and blueberries from the end of the summer, a few strawberries, everything smothered in yogurt. It was delicious, close to a no no for Zen. But Jake ate it up—so to speak—taking seconds on the fruit too. Maybe Darcy was the true Zen cook.
Jess showed up at nine, right after the breakfast break, an hour before I’d expected. I was the officiating priest that day—Jake and I were alternating—facing into the room while everyone else faced the wall. Jess looked both nervous and determined, didn’t seem to have slept a lot. The room was full—weekends in general were more crowded, as were the mornings—and she seemed fine, though you never know what’s going on in someone’s head.
The other person I had my eye on was a young guy named Kevin. He’d sat with us before, and that day had served breakfast. There was something in his slouching body language, trying to be casual, also in his lazy eyes, that seemed terribly sad. You pick up on things on retreat. Some people have sat a lot and are hard to read, doing their best imitation of a Zen master, but others are transparent, their hearts not on their sleeves but on their whole bodies. Kevin drew your sympathy just by the way he looked.
At ten thirty it was time for the talk. Some teachers go off to prepare during the sitting before the talk, have a look at some notes, even sit off somewhere and practice it, but Jake just stayed in his place. He didn’t use notes, actually believed that, however much he pondered or went over things beforehand, he should sit down to deliver the talk with nothing, let it come out of nowhere.
We have a ceremony before the talk begins. The students gathered their cushions in a semicircle around the teacher’s place, and we entered in the same procession as before, me holding incense, Jake following and offering it at the altar, doing three bows. Normally I would sit in the crowd, but today I sat beside him; Jake said something about that right after the short chant that begins the talks.
“Hank is going to help with the talks this week.”
Hank at that point probably couldn’t have spoken at all. My heart was thumping like a bass drum, my palms wet, the soles of my feet actually wet—a new one on me—and that nervous feeling fluttered down in my stomach.
But I have come to feel through the years that fear is what connects me with the audience, also somehow with what I’m talking about. The words come from where the fear is. So I don’t worry about it. If I’d had to speak right then, I’d have waited. Your heart can’t pound forever.
Jess sat straight and looked relaxed, now that there was some entertainment. Kevin seemed on the verge of sleep. Madeleine—out in the middle of the crowd—looked intent. Thirty or so faces around them were in various stages of concentration, expectation, intensity.
“Today is the first day of sesshin,” Jake said, “and by this time you’re already disappointed.” A burst of laughter from the group. They were ready for one. “We come looking for something, wisdom, compassion, peace of mind, calm. Maybe you had something you wanted to work on. There’s something going on that you want to figure out, or get away from.
“But whatever that is, whatever you were hoping for, chances are it hasn’t happened. What you want to happen is not what happens. The wanting itself is an obstacle. It’s the wanting you need to look at. It’s the problem, not the thing you want to fix.”
There was a long pause. I wondered if Jake had spaced out. I wasn’t sure how I was going to decide.
I looked out at Madeleine, who still looked calm. When she worried, I would.
“What you should do over the next few days,” Jake said, “is as little as possible. Expend the least amount of effort you can. Just stay on the cushion. I know that sounds strange, but most people who come to Zen try too hard, and the teaching is that we’re enlightened as we are. There’s nothing to do. We just settle into ourselves.”
Another long pause. When Jake spoke, he held the little wooden stick that teachers carry in front of him, as if planting it in the ground. He held it with two hands, like a little post.
“One of the most interesting things about the Buddha’s teaching is that it starts with the realization of impermanence. He set out from his home, set out from the palace, because he had some deep experience of impermanence. It had shaken him to the core.
“It was something so deep that, even though he had everything, a beautiful wife, a newborn son, position at the top of his society, wealth, luxury, every advantage, he left all that to shave his head, walk around in discarded clothing, and beg for a living. He gave up everything because of the question he had encountered: If old age, sickness, and death are the fate of mankind, what’s the use of living?”
Jake gazed at the wall in the back of the room. He took a long pause.
“It’s a young man’s question, in a way
. An old man doesn’t ask it. But he didn’t come up with an answer for impermanence. He didn’t, as he thought he might, go into meditation so deeply he found something. He actually found impermanence to be at the heart of everything. He made it the cornerstone of his teaching.”
Another long pause, another gaze at the back wall.
“That’s what Hank is going to talk about this morning.”
I looked at him. He was holding that little stake in front of him, staring down. He wasn’t, as far as I could tell, having one of his spells. He looked as calm and clear-eyed as he had all morning. He actually smiled at me, that little glint in his eye.
What the hell was this?
I had been caught up in what he was saying, especially the part about it being a young man’s question. I wondered where he would go with that. I wanted to hear.
If I was going to, it would have to come out of me.
I didn’t feel nervous. I had done that already, felt fear down to the seventh sphincter or whatever it was. I still felt a twinge of that sensation, a little hollow feeling, down beneath my balls, down there, as we used to say, where I live. I had no idea what to say.
I took a deep breath and spoke.
“The most interesting thing about the teaching on impermanence is the way the Buddha taught us to see it. Or maybe just the most effective thing, I don’t know. Lots of thinkers have talked about impermanence. Poets have been writing about it for centuries. And Heraclitus, who I first studied in college, is famous for saying you can’t step twice in the same river. I remember how fascinated I was when I first came across that statement. Pondered it for hours. It was my first encounter with the emptiness behind everything. Reading about it in a book, anyway.”
Well, maybe not hours. I had a tendency toward hyperbole. I also wasn’t certain when Heraclitus lived, whether he preceded the Buddha. Maybe that wasn’t the point.
The room was deadly still, everyone in their best Zen postures. A few looked at me, but most were gazing at the floor, terribly serious. It was like lecturing a crowd of zombies.
