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Eyes of Peace
Brian K. Wilcox
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In the mid-sixties, at the old Sokoji temple on Bush Street in San Francisco, Shunryu Suzuki had concluded his lecture and asked for questions. A woman I didn't recognize raised her hand. She said she was looking for a teacher. She said she had gone to Joshu Sasaki in L.A. and that he had rejected her. She didn't understand why. Suzuki urged her to return to L.A., not to give up on Sasaki so quickly. She burst into tears and sobbed, "Now you reject me!"
"Oh no," said Suzuki, stepping toward her with his arms opening wide, the long sleeves of his robe hanging down like curtains, "I never reject anyone."
*David Chadwick. In "Forward" to Gaylon Ferguson. Welcoming Beginner's Mind: Zen and Tibetan Buddhist Wisdom on Experiencing Our True Nature.
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We move in the intimate way from seeing welcoming as an act only to seeing our nature is welcoming. "Seeing our nature" means we see we are welcoming itself.
This welcoming is one reason we feel joy when we include someone in our lives or share in a welcoming group. This is a reason we can feel constriction among people who are welcoming and non-welcoming. Such groups bear a contradiction, a lack of harmony. They want to welcome whom they are comfortable welcoming, not those who are unlike them, who will threaten their cozy sameness.
We can live with an open door. This open door, which is ourselves, does not need to be opened anywhere, for welcoming is welcoming. We can be welcoming in our home, the grocery store, the sporting event, our workplace, anyplace, and alone or with others. Welcoming does not change into unwelcoming because you are by yourself.
Because we are welcoming, we desire to express that in giving and receiving. Presence seeks presence. Sharing invites sharing. Ryokan (Japanese Zen monk and recluse, 1758-1831), who enjoyed some occasional visitors and time in the village at the foot of Mt. Kugami - especially playing ball or marbles with children - wrote of this need for sharing -
Once in a while
I just let time wear on
Leaning against a solitary pine
Standing speechless,
As does the whole universe!
Ah, who can share
This solitude with me?
*Misao Kodama, Hikosaku Yanagishima, Trans. Zen Fool Ryokan.
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Ryokan can write, also, showing he is not unhealthily attached to needing others, for he enjoys himself -
I am not escaping from the world;
But what I like best is
To enjoy myself alone
Without mingling in the crowd.
*Zen Fool Ryokan.
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Welcoming includes all beings - pine nettles, trees and rocks, moss, breezes, snowflakes, garbage, sex, mountains, bald heads, pop music, nose hairs, sweatdrops, and raindrops. This is a reason so many feel connected to nature about them and enjoy walks on mountains, trails, and woods. Connection with nature - which we are - is connection to our ancestors and kin.
Stonehouse (i.e., Shiwu; Chinese Chan monk, poet, recluse; b. 1272) -
Try to find what's real and what's real becomes more distant
try to end delusions and delusions multiply
followers of the Way have an all-embracing place
the moon in the sky and its reflection in the waves
*Red Pine, Trans. The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse.
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We can live with a felt desire for apartness and togetherness. In welcoming, both arise. Both arise in harmony with true nature. We can get out of balance by indulging in either. Of course, this all differs from person to person and can change over the seasons of our lives. The wind blows freely. Do not put a stop sign before it. True nature moves. Harmony is not static.
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Possibly, a great challenge for many of us is to welcome ourselves. How close are you to you? Can you explore that, be open to that, and not as you would like to be but as you are - you are welcoming, so you can do this.
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*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2024
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