Muddy Roads
Subtitle: What are you carrying?
After spending the morning on a ladder, sawing and trimming thick bushes, I’m heading back to the monastery building to attend the noon service. With nearly no room for personal preferences, every community member is expected to show up on time for each activity unless something very serious is happening. From the dark of the morning to the dark of the night, together we all commit to follow the structured schedule full of silence, meditation, ceremony, and taking care of the community, monastery buildings, and its lands. Mud is sticking to my already heavy work boots. Somewhere in the middle of the path, I’m not sure if I can take another step. I pause for a moment and notice that it’s not only my feet, but my heart and mind too resist.
Poem:
heavier
with each step
muddy road
I recall that I couldn’t really pin down the problem. I certainly felt tired and homesick on some days and occasionally annoyed by the cold, dark, damp coastal Oregon fall and winter weather. But overall, I didn’t mind following the schedule, many hours of sitting meditation, or working. During work periods, I was grateful for any opportunity to spend time outside, trimming raspberries, planting trees, sawing bamboo, and building new trails in the depths of the woods surrounding the monastery. Still, at that moment, there was a strong sense of resistance felt deep down, in a place where thoughts had not yet taken shape. I think it’s quite common for people undergoing intense spiritual practice to reach a point where we ask ourselves: “What am I doing here? Why not just live in the most comfortable way that’s within my reach?” This was perhaps one of those moments. I knew my answers though, and fortunately, it only took me a few breaths to find rest.
One of the benefits of a monastery environment or a longer retreat is that it typically makes noticing even subtle layers of struggle and resistance easier. Seeing and understanding them is a necessary step towards healing. It may take a bit more effort to recognize this outside a monastery, in the midst of all busyness, entertainment, and sensory pleasures. Nevertheless, I have no doubt that it is possible. The truths of the workings of human experience are always available. It’s what we’re all made of, after all.
Ranging from nearly unrecognizable restlessness to extreme suffering, we frequently experience discontent and tension of some sort. Life’s weather presents many challenges and as if that weren’t enough, we often carry unnecessary baggage, just like one of the monks from the well-known Zen story, Muddy Road:
Tanzan and Ekido were once traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was still falling. Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection. “Come on, girl,” said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud. Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself. “We monks don’t go near females,” he told Tanzan, “especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?” “I left the girl there,” said Tanzan. “Are you still carrying her?”
Poor Ekido, for the whole day carrying the girl and in fact, himself! Human experience is too often like this—crushed under the heavy load of my money, my power, my property, my career, my projects, my plans, my studies, my travels, my time, my character, my opinions, my strengths, my weaknesses, my past, my present, my future, my status, my role, my purpose, my religion, my tradition, my lineage, my practice, my meditation, my insight, my virtue, my vows, my experience. No wonder it’s difficult to walk with ease. It’s not that all these things wouldn’t matter. I believe that in a sense, many of them do. However, is this all really about me and mine? Is there a need to carry it constantly around? Can we take good care of all these things, while not obsessing all day and all night?
Not only does the story shows how Ekido weighted himself down, but also points to nuanced wisdom of ethical precepts and compassion working hand in hand with letting go. If our hands are constantly full of ourselves, how can we help anyone? I am also noticing humility, lightness, and non-judgment represented by Tanzan’s character. Even though he lives simply and without many possessions, Tanzan doesn’t make any clever comments about the girl being so worried about a bit of dirt. Nor does he make sure that everyone within earshot is properly informed about the depth of his insight by giving her a talk about the impermanence of all things and the ultimate futility of clinging to luxurious clothes. Rather, recognizing what the girl needs at that moment and an opportunity to help, he does so completely, and then he is completely done. How simple!
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn’t possess,
acts but doesn’t expect.
When her work is done,
she forgets it.
☸
May your journey be filled with care and ease.