The Best Buddhist Writing 2010 - Melvin McLeod [46]
If we become too gentle, however, we might become feeble. So fearlessness comes next. In terms of how we engage in our life, we’re no longer second-guessing ourselves, because we’re not afraid of our mind. We can look at it head-on. Although we encounter obstacles, we steadfastly move forward; we’re not afraid of giving up territory or taking a leap. Fearlessness has a decisive element, too: at some point we can respond to a situation with a simple “yes” or “no”—the “maybes” go out the door.
With fearlessness comes awareness. No longer cloaked in habitual pattern, no longer using hope and fear to manipulate the environment, we are aware of what’s happening in our life. We have more energy because we’re not burdened by trying to maintain the concept and polarity of “me.” Our practice becomes more three-dimensional.
The last entry on this list is a sense of humor. I haven’t met any great practitioner who didn’t have a good sense of humor. It’s a sign of pliability and intelligence. Who wants to be a brow-heavy practitioner, squinting hard as we try to push out realization? With a dharmic eye, we’re able to see things with some levity because we’re connected to our wholesomeness.
Each morning we can choose one of these elements as a daily contemplation and practice. Throughout the day, we can train ourselves to bring the mind to “egolessness,” “faith,” or “gentleness”—as words, then actions. In the evening, we can take a moment before going to sleep and reflect on what happened: “How did I use this day to nurture my mind and heart?”
Training to increase our dharmic habitual tendencies is a perpetual source of inspiration and strength that provides a standard for decision making at every level. It’s how we become perpetually forward-thinking, visionary people who can use every situation as an opportunity to cross over from the transcendent to the practical—and back.
In the Wild Places
John Tarrant
A dying father, a grown son. Past pains put aside in an atmosphere of love. Sometimes such times are the best a parent and child ever have. How much more so with dharma quietly present in the background.
People go to wild places to search for their true nature. Where is your true nature?
—ZEN KOAN
My father, Max, lived alone for some years in Launceston, Tasmania, on a steep hillside with a view of the mountains and the town. He liked the light and the smell of the bush, the wallabies thumping their tails against the side of the house as they went down to drink at dusk. Then his health led him to move in with my sister, in Adelaide.
He said on the phone that he was dying and it would be nice to see me. I flew into Adelaide via Auckland and contracted a flu along the way. My body felt hot and gritty inside, and when I closed my eyes there was a dark swirling followed by lights that flashed and disappeared, like luminous plankton on a long night journey in tropical waters.
When I opened my eyes, Adelaide was there, turning from summer to autumn, and showing signs of global warming. The trees were gasping in public parks and had shed their leaves in the heat. Everyone spoke about rain, wanting rain, whether it would rain, the last time they had seen rain.
The hospice was in an old building of pleasant brick with new bits added on and trees around. He greeted me with delight: “Who are you? Never saw you before in my life!” He seemed to be playing with the idea that his relationship to consensus reality couldn’t be taken for granted anymore. We shook hands.
Wild places exist in people as well as in landscapes. When my mother was in hospice, she was resolutely herself. With the integrity of an animal, or of an archetype, she was prickly and hostile and sweet in a rhythm belonging to her alone. She didn’t adapt, and made few concessions to the requests of the living. In practice, this made her journey quite private.
I had unconsciously expected Max to follow the same path.