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Sundown... Sharing the Shore
Dogen 1200s, Founder Soto Zen in Japan -
Beyond enlightenment is a jewel concealed in your hair.
*Kazuaki Tanahashi, Levitt, Peter. The Essential Dogen.
pausing
halfway up the stair -
white chrysanthemums
-Elizabeth Searle Lamb (1914-2004)
In her Haiku Mind, Patricia Donegan writes of the above haiku, saying, "Pausing is the doorway to awakening." Could we not say, also, "Awakening is the doorway to pausing"? Can we separate the two?
Pausing can be a manifestation of our innate wakefulness, even if we more than not are walking about asleep. One moment of decision to stop and look and listen, fully, is the fruition of wakefulness. It is wakefulness. How do we know? How could it be otherwise?
Donegan remarks that these wakeful moments of pausing arise naturally. The poet was walking up the stair, and her attention was captivated by the chrysanthemums. She did not plan to stop. Seeing and stopping arose in the moment of wakefulness arising. Through cultivating this wakefulness by deciding to pause and welcome what is before us, these moments are more prone to arise spontaneously. We experience a growing sense of awe amid the most ordinary sights and sounds. We see differently than before.
This wakeful pause is not mystical, however. Why need it be? It is enough as it is. What need is there to call it anything - spiritual, religious, mystical, supernatural, natural ...? What need is there to speak of mindfulness? These thoughts do not arise in the meeting itself. The Sun does not need you to call it anything. It has no interest in being anything. It is. It shines. Long before "Sun" was the Sun. Can you enjoy the Sun without thinking about what you are enjoying?
We might need to admit how we rush about and miss the opportunity for gratitude and awe with what is presenting itself to us. The whole world is waiting for your attention. Life invites us to communion through the everyday forms it takes.
Haste and awe are antithetical, though there is a place for each. Yet, scurrying about as a way of life separates us from the enjoyment of appreciation and aliveness. Knowing this, we decide to stop and be fully present more often. We soften our felt-need to move from here to there. And the flower of now has a chance to blossom before us. And when we need to hurry, we will be more present to the moment even in the hurrying. We will hurry less, however, seeing how much we hurried when we truly did not need to. And changing our routines a little can help, like not sleeping quite as long so to drive slower on the way to work, enjoying the sites, even the sound of the tires on the road and the hum of the motor, and appreciating the landscape we pass through. Oh, yes, and turning off the audio book and music might help. Can the drive itself be enough?
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Remember Dogen saying above, "Beyond enlightenment is a jewel concealed in your hair." The thought salvation, awakening, enlightenment, oneness ... cannot convey the moon the finger points to. "Fish" is never a fish or a thousand of them. In intimacy with what is right in front of you, no enlightenment: it cannot enter. Enlightenment beyond enlightenment is no enlightenment. Same with awakening. Same with God. Same with you and me. Same with those words and more.
So, Dogen says, beyond enlightenment is a gem in your hair. How about that? "Hair" sounds so uneventful, so not holy, so unspectacular. Yet, in being fully attentive, things begin to appear quite different than what we had assumed was or would be... even could be. Now, what preacher would stand up and say on a Sunday, "Where is God, people? God is hiding in your hair. In fact, that is beyond God." But if you do not really see the hair all about you, you miss seeing this beyond that is right there in front of you, maybe looking back at you. Yet, all you can see, anyway, is beyond God. So, pay attention to all the hair in your life. Hair is everywhere... just see! Do not try to elevate beyond hair, as though that is more spiritual. Not your thought, see hair. Call this what you will, it remains beyond, for the mind is its child, not its parent.
And "beyond" has nothing to do with a far away distance. Can your eyes see your eyes? Are they far away? Your eyes are beyond your eyes, and you are beyond you. Still, your eyes are with your eyes, and you are with you. Without "beyond," no intimacy is possible. And all wakeful pausing, which means seeing, arises as intimacy and from intimacy. Do we avoid pausing, for we avoid intimacy? Is looking okay, but seeing too much for us? So, we run and run and run, even if sitting or lying down? Nevertheless, the seeing that is calls to the seeing that is. Hair calls to hair.
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When a United Methodist clergyperson, my area leader led the yearly meeting at the congregation I served as pastor. I had been pastor there less than a year, and she and I had met together once, probably had shared no more than an hour of conversation. Otherwise, we met briefly at clergy gatherings a few times. In the one face-to-face meeting, she was interested in hearing about my life as a vowed contemplative. This way of life seemed unfamiliar to her - such a life is rare in evangelical Christianity, in any Christianity for non-monastics. I do not recall how much we shared about my contemplative experience, but the impact of our sharing was apparent at the yearly meeting. I was surprised when she said, "Your pastor has had more of an influence on me than any other in this district" - which covered a large section of northern Florida. She continued by saying since meeting me, during her travels, she would stop and pull her vehicle off the road, get out, and contemplate the world about her. She was cultivating intentionally pausing to be fully welcoming of what was present to be enjoyed in all its naturalness: attention, appreciation, celebration. We can, too, realizing getting somewhere is not the most important thing about life. Life itself is much more important, and more gratifying.
(C) brian k. wilcox, 2025
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