August,
truly regret that I have so underestimated you all these years. I never realized the depth of your commitment in this spiritual search. But our dinner the other night, and hearing about your experiences, made me realize how incomplete my understanding of you was. I was just reading an excerpt from “Our Town.” It brought tears to my eyes. I saw that play as a Hallmark TV special when I was in high school and it had a powerful effect on me then which I could not comprehend at the time.
You can’t truly see the hidden life behind things until you see life nearly whole. You have to somehow recede from it so a “bigger piece of the canvas” is visible. Shocks trigger this for us, particularly anything which brings us into closer contact with death. When this happens, that canvas is then witnessed as a “thing apart,” outside of you. Seeing it as a thing apart reveals its beauty – and illusion, a simultaneous contemplation of beauty and a seeming of beauty that is intensely sad and painful, for you are torn between what is and what is not.
It is in knowing that none of this is permanent or real, including yourself, that makes “reality” a hugely complex story. The individual forms in the story are utterly superficial. It is the themes that are playing out – as clouds rolling across the sky, depicted in all the interactions and complex relationships between all the forms – that matter and make it so painfully poignant. What makes it painful? The memory of, and desire for, it to be real, and knowing that everyone is committed to it as real – even my own character participating in it, simultaneously aware of it from a point of reference outside of it all.
As the stage manager in “Our Town” says, “You not only live it, but you watch yourself living it.”
That something “way down deep that’s eternal about every human being” is all that there is. The stage manager says of the recently deceased, they are “waiting for something they feel is comin’…waitin’ for the ‘earth’ part of ‘em to burn itself out and the eternal part to come out in them clear…” He then asks tauntingly of one of them, “And what’s left when memory is gone, and your identity, Mr. Turak?”
Our earthly identity is all that is separating us from God, and it is the thinnest of veils, a manufactured fiction, which we cling to as if not only our existence, but the existence of God himself, depended on it.
In friendship,
Bob
Dear Bob:
You speak with both authority and with beauty about all that matters. Funny that you mention Our Town. One of the things I did that turned out supernaturally during that Zen course that I taught at Duke was have the kids put on the third act of Our Town. I copied the third act and had them just read through it. The effect was incredible. Then I told them that we would put it on for the larger group plus guests at a regular SKS meeting. I told them they didn’t have to memorize it, just read through it. Instead, they put an incredible amount of time into getting ready.
On the night of the show about 65 people showed up. The performance was magical. Afterwards, without any planning, they all sat down on the floor in a circle in front of the audience and began talking about their experience. Everyone fell into silence as the kids spoke from somewhere deep down, and I was just amazed. As the rapport built, some of the other students who had come to see a show got alarmed. One kid just blurted out, “Hey, what is this? What’s going on here?” But what was amazing is that the kids in the course were completely unflappable. It was one of the most incredible scenes of my life. I sat there transported, wishing with all my heart that the moment would never end.
August
What do I do?
Make the most out of each day by living with integrity and compassion.
Don’t figure it out, find out:
-
Be authentic and live in the moment. Read how living life with integrity will help us all become more successful.
-
Practice detachment by looking at a situation realistically and objectively. Read how a group of college students were able to pull off a major event with extraordinary results that Will Willimon, the Dean of the Duke Chapel called “downright miraculous” by giving themselves completely to a high mission and aiming past the target.
-
Take time each day to tell someone special how much they mean to you. Read the response to a reader who asked if being single played a huge factor in Turak’s ability to stick to the spiritual path.
-
Give yourself to something bigger. Founded by Hanley Denning in 1999, Safe Passage began when a nun took her to visit those living and working at the Guatemala City Dump. In an act of selflessness, she saw the needs of the community and listened to their stories. She then took action and met the needs with classes for children and a support network for families. Watch as the community continues to grow as more and more needs are met and more volunteers join the efforts.
What moments have you wished would never end? What memories do you wish you could relive?