Finding completeness in the incomplete: Ryoanji Zen garden

Some months ago, I decide to suspend the blog for a bit. I doubt its authenticity. Even if everything is honest, I edit, or rather, remove big chunks before posting.  

I am interested in those big deleted chunks. The raw and real bits that disappear into the abyss of computer memory. Bits and bytes that hold the soul, the true soul, that which is best kept hidden and hence deleted.

Suddenly, everything feels inauthentic. The same honest blog, the exercise in sorting things out, in trying to make sense of the world (I do believe that is what we’re all trying to do from the moment we are born) feels only half true. I decide I need to look closer at the deleted chunks.

I stop posting. Slowly, for whatever reason, I stop writing. No I don’t turn to other languishing projects, I don’t create fictional characters who could resolve/express the “deleted chunks” (since we’re giving them their own personality now).

I miss the writing process. I may not have any talent, but it feels right. It settles me.

Reluctantly, I decide to start writing the blog again. Simply because a blog post is something that I have to end, to round up before posting. It doesn’t remain a stray, unfinished thought (there is that half-baked attempt to complete a thought). I decide that tying up loose ends may be a good thing.  

I decide to write again. I have scribbles from a recent travel.

My breath stops. I know exactly what I must write.

A few weeks ago, I sit in front of fifteen rocks at the Ryoanji Zen temple garden in Kyoto. Fifteen is a symbol of completeness in Buddhism. Yet, the rocks are arranged such that from no angle, can you see all fifteen at a time.

Yes, there is completeness. We know it. Yet we can never see it.

Simple. Elegant. True. Harsh. Beautiful.

Or perhaps it suggests completeness in everything. And we must have faith in that completeness. Even when we can’t see it. So much power would lie in that believing. In that faith.  

Perhaps my deleted chunks are the rocks that continue to exist, even when I take them out. They are part of the fifteen – the complete. The blog post with the deleted chunks is still complete. Even if I can’t see it. Even when I doubt it.

Such simple elegance. Evidently, I don’t have the enlightenment to see all fifteen – in the garden, in my edited blog post. And yes, the belief is that all fifteen stones are visible once you attain enlightenment. And yes, did I mention my eleven-year-old claims she can see all fifteen. But I digress.

We sit on the verandah and stare at the karesansui (dry garden) with its white pebbles, raked neatly into linear patterns, and the carefully arranged fifteen stones. Everything is fitted neatly in the walled courtyard and visitors sit on the verandah and gaze.

I wonder how many are trying to see the fifteenth stone. I wonder how many are surrendering to the incompleteness in the complete. I wonder how many find it easy to have faith in the completeness.

Such a simple garden. So complex. Such simple lessons. So profound. If only all learning could be so. If only we could apply these learnings to our daily life. Would our life be so too?

Simple. Profound. True. Beautiful.

You may have to crook your neck - I was either being arty or clumsy :)

 

Ryoanji rock garden

 

Moss garden at Ryoanji

The essence of the place we travel to…

We walk on the glacier in awe. Sheets of ice beneath our feet. We feel humble before the splendor of nature.

We hear a thunderous roar. Hmm... An unsettling sound when you’re standing on ice. A glacial avalanche in the adjoining mountains. Silvery ice rocks shine as they crumble down, sparkling in the sun, a sprinkling of diamonds – fiercer, far more beautiful than any diamond.

The pristine air, imposing mountains, aquamarine waters of the Canadian Rockies inspires awe… and hordes of tourists. Lines for the gondolas are winding, we ditch a canyon hike because we can’t find parking, we wait in a loooong line for ice-cream (but wait, don’t we do that in Portland too? Hmm…).

In all fairness, it is not as busy as say, Rome or Paris, and other than Banff, we are not caught in the touristy rush. But over and over, I remember my Spaniard friend, who fiercely avoided all touristy hubs.

I remember my wonder as he tells me how he explored France and Italy, without ever hanging around in Paris or Venice or Rome, how he explored Morocco, but without Marrakech or Casablanca.

“So you never want to see the Leaning tower of Pisa?” I ask in amazement. He tells me he wants to get a feel for the place, to know it, not if it comes with tourists or cheesy souvenir stores.

I am surprised, even if I understand.

More than a decade later, I wonder why I am reminded of his travel strategy over and over again on this trip.

I wonder if it because these mountains and glaciers remind me of Himalayan treks. None of these were very difficult treks, yet, they took us away from the bustle of towns into the wilderness of the mountains.

These mountains and glaciers make me feel close to nature too – but they come with souvenir stores, selfie sticks and far more tourists - nicely dressed tourists, not unshowered, unkempt youngsters trekking.

I wonder if a plethora of tourists keeps us in a certain bubble – not allowing us to truly experience the essence of the place. We experience the place, and its wonders, but do we really get the true feel for the place?

I am no longer an off-the-beaten-path traveler. I want direct fights, easy commutes, clean, comfortable accommodation, ahem… wifi (my family mostly – for we need to catch the Canadian Pokemon, of course).

Or maybe I'm just getting old.

In these mountains, I remember other mountain treks. The Rohtang Pass summit climb - where somehow, three of us had broken off from the group. I no longer would want to break off from the group.

I no longer would make fun of my then-hypochondriac friend each time she announced shortness of breath and even more dramatically that she was dying. Well… maybe… just a little?

I would no longer find it hilarious that she and I somehow tumbled over each other and went rolling down the snowy mountain, quite close to a precipice.   

So what is it that I am finding so hard to acknowledge? That this may be my permanent reality now? That I want places with beauty and wonder and the ease and convenience – a combination that brings tons of tourists. So does that mean I must make peace with experiencing a place without truly experiencing the essence of a place?

Hmm… Might as well get that selfie stick too... sigh…

September

September is a tricky month. I have thought so for many years. Summer slips away. A new school year begins. I have another birthday. Leaves begin to turn color, slowly losing their grip on trees, drifting midair, touching the earth to a quiet burial.

It all seems connected. As I sit here and write, in a house that seems so suddenly shoved into stillness, the walls look shocked – by the lack of noise and the occasional flying ball/frisbee… I look outside at the grey skies – summer, where did you go? Another coughing spate. I make a cup of tea. I often manage to get sick around this time – which is why, I have the time to mull this over, in the first place. And no, I’m not like a friend’s kid who gets sick around her birthday – just from the excitement of it all.

The birthday adds to it - even if the getting old part doesn’t seem to bother me, I do seem to question what I have done with my time here. Did it simply slip away like the summer?

This September, I am constantly reminded of a book I read a few months ago, Ruth Ozeki’s, A Tale for the Time Being. She refers to a “time being” as

…someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be.*
…all moments are the time being, they are your time being.*

I love the concept of a time being. I love the impermanence it offers to our existence. Why then do we make such a big deal of it? For we are only time beings. Perhaps, that is not how Ozeki intends for it to be understood. The author draws on Buddhist philosopher, Dogen’s concept of time, the flow of it, and that all beings in the world are time, and connected by it.  

…Everything in the universe was constantly changing, and nothing stays the same, and we must understand how quickly time flows by if we are to wake up and truly live our lives.*

One can hardly talk about time, without talking about it passing. Which is why I think of it every September. This summer will never come back. There will be next summer – but my kid will be a different age, a different person – as will I.

That’s what I feel like when I write, like I have this beautiful world in my head, but when I try to remember it to write it down, I change it, and I can’t ever get it back.*

Towards the end of the summer we complain that the vacation is faaaar too long, the kids need to be back in school. This week, I will attend: “The Kids Are Back In School, We Made It Through The Summer Mimosa Party”. Someone told me of how her sister and a group of friends drop the kids off, on the first day of school, and pop open a bottle of champagne, in a minivan, in the school parking lot.

For all the bickering and fighting… a parent says, “I know they’re (siblings) ready for school when the fighting begins…”

Another says, “They’ve (siblings) spent so much time, in such close proximity, they’ve formed a close bond, but can barely tolerate each other, either”.

I understand both comment. No, my kid does not have a sibling. She does however have a mother… (sigh… when there is no sibling… why does mom have to be the adult, grrr….? Not always successfully either… sigh…)

Yes. Despite it all, the joys of back to school, of the end of summer, of another birthday… are all bittersweet.

I have a pretty good memory. But memories are time beings too, like cherry blossoms or ginko leaves; for a while they are beautiful, and then they fade and die.*

Is that the source of the twinge? That something so precious, so dear, so sweet will crumble away and be forgotten? Is it this realization, the inability to hold on, the futility of trying to hold on?

Perhaps it is simply a reminder to be present.
Life is fleeting. Don’t waste a single moment of your precious life. Wake up now. And now. And now.*

(yikes, even if the above quote seems like a lot of pressure...)

Perhaps, we can all learn to be more like the grandmother in the book… even if it seems impossible…

Old Jiko is supercareful about her time. She does everything really really slowly, even when she’s just sitting on the veranda, looking out at dragonflies spinning lazily around the garden pond. She says she does everything really really slowly in order to spread time out so that she’ll have more of it and live longer…*

For the time being

Words scatter

Are they fallen leaves?*

* All italicized quotes are from Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being.

Rock flour

Waters swirl. The senses take them in. All the senses. The senses seem satisfied, even if somewhat inundated.  

The sound – deafening rushing in the canyons, against stony mountain walls, roaring waterfalls – contrasting the soft soothing ripples, the gentle lapping waves in lakes.
The taste of the cold blue glacier water, an aquamarine stream at the mouth of an imposing glacier. I bend down in awe, greedily filling our bottles, wishing I could have somehow carried a barrel. 

The touch – so cold, so pure, so fierce. I look at the swirly walls of canyons. Water that has created swirls in the stone, so easily, so effortlessly, like fingers running through sand.

The sight – brilliant colors set against imposing mountains and glaciers - the aquamarines, the blues, the turquoises, the milky-whites… My breath stops several times, as we turn a corner in the mountains, or suddenly come face to face with the waters, startled by the iridescence. 

The waters of the Canadian Rockies…

The glacier tour guide explains the colors. Rock flour, he tells us, is the fine silt caused by glacial erosion and grinding of rocks. Glaciers grind up the stone. Fiercely, minutely, permanently. This rock flour is then either carried by wind or flows into meltwater. It is through this glacial milk and sedimentation, that the ground up stone lends color to the waters.

And what resplendent colors. Turquoise, aquamarine, blues, greens, whites… so beautiful… so entwined in their interactions with their surroundings, they take on their colors. Permanently.

The intertwining of nature…  

glacier spring

So, if we are part of nature, are there rock flours in our surroundings? Ground up in our being?  

What color/ colors are we? Where do we get these colors from? Who/what is the source of our colors? Perhaps there are puddles of colors inside us – some dazzling, other dark. Some origins that we know of, others unknown.   

Can we choose which rock flours we want to allow to be part of us? And which we would rather not? And if they must be, maybe they can remain no more than a tiny puddle…

For staring at the waters in the Rockies, one thing is apparent - rock flours can lead to much beauty… hopefully it can be so - with humans, as well…

Hospital notes...

As a species, I believe we are completely screwed up. I am almost certain of it. Or perhaps I should not generalize. For many of you have your act together. But yet…

The reason for this conclusion? Scribbles in a small diary I find from last year. Written from a hospital bed.

My breath stops when I see the shaky, barely legible scribbles. My hand trembles as I turn pages.

Why would I even want to write? I ask myself. With all the tubes and drains poking out from different parts of my body, making me look like a Martian octopus? (And yes, I know exactly what a Martian octopus look like).

Why would I want to write? I ask myself. When everything seemed so painful and awful and discouraging? When I thought I could be dying (only for a few days).

Now I rarely reread journal entries. They are moments in time and moments pass. But I am curious. I am also apprehensive, and nervous to go down that path again.

I turn the pages. There is not a whole lot to read. The entries are short, the writing barely legible, the dates as mixed up and confused as my head. I find several entries for July 15, 2015 and one right after for June 13. Hmm… So I ready myself to read a bunch of incoherent gibberish nonsense.

I hold my breath again. To my surprise, it is not nonsense. It feels raw and vulnerable. I am able to read only a few entries.

I close my eyes and the book and put it away.

A few days later, I am in a funk. I look for the book and read a couple other entries. I feel better. The entries are raw, no doubt, but surprisingly, neither melancholic nor depressing.

There is a strange unnatural will to step out of the mess.

Yes. When I am in a funk, I reach out to a spectacularly difficult month in my life to draw inspiration. Now if that isn’t screwed up, what is?

Is it just human nature to hold it together in a crisis? But what about after? Is it easier to hold it together for a month and a half, and give it the fight you got? But what about after?

For difficult times don’t come with specific start and end dates, you see. What about for when the crisis still festers, but is a low-grade one. What does one do then? Why can’t I find journal entries then? (or maybe they are there, I literally, just can’t find them).

Perhaps it is a function of writing. For writing moves us towards the light. Okay, that may sound a little woo woo. What I mean, is that even if we start in a dark place, perhaps writing moves us away from that place to a more hopeful one, maybe just a teeny weeny more hopeful, but hopeful, nonetheless.

I spend a month and a half in the hospital. Doing the math, approximately, 1080 hours. Of these, the writing would be only a handful. The rest I probably spend glaring, scowling, being scared, staring foolishly…

Yet I go to those notes written in a minuscule minority of the time spent there.  

For they give me hope that in our worst times, we may be our better versions.

***

Here are a few... barely legible... written through the cloud of pain and drugs... 

Pain. The pudeur* of pain. A stench it ?? through a life normal. Sucking out fragrance, oozing out dishearten?? From every cell within. Smells of failure. Smells of lost dreams. Of hopes unfulfilled. 

How then do we remember it to be effacing. That hopes and optimism survive – even if they take on a sad face? How do we know to not allow that sad face to become our permanent face?   

(*pudeur - French. I know! Must be the pain meds)  

Puffy so puffy – I feel I could burst – just like the story of the green toad. The toad wants to show its pride – the bloating is showing me my humility.

It’s showing me the need to stay soft and relaxed and never bloat – for no good comes out of a good bloat. That is apparent…

This refers to a story about a vain toad who puffs up to show how big he can be -- but bursts. Ouch! 

… yes that if I put one foot in front of the other foot and keep moving in the direction away from the negativity…

For those not quite initiated or educated in art…. That is probably a picture of me on the beach with a sombrero possibly holding a glass of something-with-an-umbrella-in-it.

8/1/15
More blood tonight for this vampire. Here’s praying that this kind soul and stranger who donated blood – helps me feel stronger and healthier…

It’s night time in the ward again. Dread climbs, apprehension climbs, irritability climbs…. (griping about the night nurses – some were great, some - I was rather scared of).

...Yes, as night looms, a certain gloom looms over. But tonight I’m determined to see things different. I want to let go of the cynicism and negativity inside me that makes me gnarly – I know I’m in terrible pain. But perhaps, just for… ?? I will think of the night nurses as my friends – in the spirit of ??

It feels somewhat difficult to read and type up these notes. But there are so many more that truly surprise me. 

If only there was some way to extract the soul of the moment and hold on to it.   

Human vs Ants

The army stands in a single file. Fierce, determined, strong. In all their dark glory, the tiny black ants march into the battlefield. My kitchen floor.  

An evil giant awaits them. Waiting to quell the army.
Little do they know that the giant has horror in her eyes and fear in her heart. But enough with the drama, already.

Flashback to two weeks ago.

A young lady stands outside my door.

“Due to the construction up the hill, there has been insect and mice infestation in the neighborhood. Luckily we’re here in the neighborhood today.”

She looks at me closely. She realizes she has repeated the same lines to me before. Quickly she changes tactic.

“There’s a wasp’s nest above your garage.”

The tactic works. She notices the alarm, probably apparent in my eyes. In my defense -- our friends in the neighborhood recently had a hive of twenty thousand bees. Yes. Twenty thousand.

I follow her. She points to an itty bitty hive. I seem disinterested.

“There are more, you know.” She points to others – equally itty bitty. She works her fear-inducing-spiel on me.

I ponder. It’s a busy day. There are other things I’d rather be doing. I decide she is using fear tactics she has been trained in. Considering that politicians do the same… but I digress.

I decide I spend far too much time being scared of impending doom/s and just generally being scared. Even if I’ve had reason to be scared, even if I may have always been somewhat of a scaredy cat, (no matter how well I hid it,) I decide that I am tired of being scared, of what may happen, fearful of that which has not even happened yet. Even if there are times, that my mind doesn’t want to be scared, my body goes into a guarded space…

I decide this time, however trivial, to not succumb to the fear. 

*****
Today, I decide it is an unwise choice as I look down upon the army heading in a thin trail towards the pantry counter. It’s so hot outside, they must know I have the air on.

Last week, I notice a few squirmies near the pantry and feel the made-a-wrong-choice pang. I refuse to feel bad, stay strong and sprinkle dried neem leaf powder. That seems to do the trick.

I figure they will either stay away from the bitterness or develop fantastic immune systems. For you see, an Ayurvedic doctor has suggested the neem powder (ahem.. for me). I use it in my vegetable garden instead, and now to keep away ants.
My mother would buy a year’s worth of rice, storing it in bins, crushing and sprinkling dried neem leaves to keep away bugs. I remember running my fingers through the rice, pulling out the delicate, shriveled leaves, carefully, so they wouldn’t crumble into a thousand bits, before rinsing the rice.

Today, as I kneel down and watch the army attempt to capture new lands – the counter, I stand armed with neem leaf powder.

I sprinkle some on the counter and the floor following their trail. I see the ants squirm about. I swear I see an ant conferring face to face with another ant. They’ve got to be discussing, one ant debriefing the other of the danger and the giant ahead. I swear they turn around and change course. Their system seems intelligent and very evolved. And yes, I seem to have far too much time on my hands.  

I return, a while later, to find a few more on the counter. Tenacious, refusing to retreat, they’ve found a path to circumvent the neem powder. I watch them climb the more difficult path. They know it is going to take a lot more, they refuse to give up. They remind me of me. I wonder who the giant is, in my case. But I digress.

I follow the trail, stuffing neem powder in the crevice of the wood floor, till I get to their point of entry. I seal the tiny crevice between the wood floor and floor molding, and all the way across with more neem.

Hopefully there will be no part deux of humans vs ants. If there is, I should probably look into ant baits or perhaps call the insect lady and ignore her smug look and the “I told you so” song that she will be singing in her head. Sigh…

For in the end, even if I do call her, I will have decided to use her services based on need and not fear.


 

Is limited humanity, still humanity?

The other day… I give a few dollars to a homeless person. It makes me uncomfortable. It is not something I do often.

What comes in the way, I wonder. Is it idealism, my view of how the world should be, my capacity to not want to stray from it, my inflexibility?

To some extent, this is expected, I suppose - for each of us. But does it keep us trapped?

I am reminded of a day many years ago... I walk out of a grocery store I rarely frequent. I am very pregnant and must have watermelon. I notice a woman with a little girl, in the adjoining store -- Pay Day loan or some such store.

It is closed! She exclaims, visibly distraught. By now, I am right next to her. I must waddle past her. My heart goes out to her. In tears, she clutches her girl’s hand. Damn pregnancy hormones, I seem to want to tear up. I struggle to maintain composure and ask if she’s okay.

“Do you have any cash?” she asks me. Mental sigh. This is outside my comfort zone. I really don’t like to give money when I’m worried it may go towards drug or alcohol.

My judgmental mind wonders if she is an alcoholic. I don’t know whether or not I have cash – I often don’t, but I don’t check. I seem unable to find the flexibility to stray from my dogmatic rigidity. I tell her, I don’t.

“Would you like my groceries?” I ask her. There are only a few bags with basic stuff – milk, bread, eggs, cereal, fruit… She is surprised, confused, she shrugs... I hand over the bags to her. I waddle my way back to the car, balancing the watermelon against my giant belly. I remember not parting with the watermelon. Hmm… 

I also remember not going back into the store. I remember wanting to leave the place in a hurry. I call my husband and ask him to pick up the milk.

I think of the little girl and am glad I gave her the groceries, and that her mother allowed me to. But it leaves me unsettled. What if she wanted the money for medicines, why didn’t I ask, how much did she need… I am unsettled, because I know I am trapped in my beliefs and my behaviors based on them. I don’t even know if they are truly mine or where I may have acquired them.

Who am I do decide what a person needs in a given moment? The truth is piercing. It leaves me unsettled, even if I am too young to understand it then.

Not sure I’m old or mature enough to understand it better now. Besides, in another decade, I may see the same incident yet differently.   

But is kindness, kindness if it doesn’t align with what the receiver truly wants and needs?

Another story comes to mind. But my page is up. Perhaps I will write about it, or perhaps I’m done saying what there is.

I do however, continue to wonder, that despite kind intentions, are we pigeonholed in rules that we create based on our beliefs.  Even when we want to help, are we held in a certain limited humanity? Humanity to the extent that seems right and within the boundaries possible for us?  

In altruism then, is there sometimes, discrepancy between the giver’s giving and the receiver’s receiving? I suppose limited humanity is still humanity since it stems from good, kind intentions.

Why then, does it leave me unsettled?