A Harrowing Experience

A Harrowing Experience

sodaiho
May 24th, 13:33
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

So, My Little Honey decides she and her friend are going to the Refuge early on Wednesday for a planned Religious School Retreat that would begin on Friday evening and go through Sunday morning. The problem was that a thunderstorm began to roll in and by Friday developed into a freak severe weather event. Her friend left early Friday so Judy was without a car. People planning to attend began cancelling and by Friday afternoon, the event was officially cancelled and a deluge was upon the Refuge creating major flooding and turning the only dirt road into a river.

So, Judy is alone. She is anxious. I ask her if she wants me to come to get her. She says no. Son Jason and family, who were going there anyway for the retreat, decided to go Friday evening. I thought Jason's SUV was a 4-wheel drive vehicle, but apparently it was not and Jason got stuck after missing the Walker Canyon turn. It was nearly midnight. Pitch black.

All through the night Judy and I were talking getting updates on where Jason was. The Country Sherrif figured it out and verbally guided them back to the highway. They settled into a small motel in Cloudcroft for the night...of course it was 3:00 AM.

The next morning Jason tried to get to the Refuge and was within a 100 yards when as he came over the last little hill in front of the outfitter ner us, he slammed on his brakes to avoid smacking into a trailer someone left stuck in the middle of the one lane dirt road. This drive his vehicle, once again, deep into the mud. He was stuck again. They were able to carry the contents of their vehicle up the entrance road to the Refuge and were safe inside with Judy.

Sometime in the afternoon, the County Sherrif was able to get the car pulled out with the help of a mountain resident with a four-wheeler that had a wench. The Sheriff helped them pack up and guided them all back to the highway. By eight o'clock last night they were home in Las Cruces and we all sat down to have pizza.

I am very happy and relieved that they are all back safe and sound!

Next time I will be at her side.
With Palms Together,

Part B:

During all of this, some things came to the surface. I was scheduled to visit Zen Master Brad Warner in El Paso and was committed to Zen activities over the weekend. We both agreed that Judy would go to the Refuge to conduct her retreat. She took care of all of her planning, yet I still felt a great conflict regards not being there with her. I fought this because I truly believe she is a fully competent and capable woman. Yet, she also felt that somehow I should have been there when things "went south" as they say.

I wrestled with feeling powerless to help. I resisted feelings of guilt. Anger was there. We argued. We wrestled. We explored. All over long telephone conversations. .

A modern marriage is pregnant with opportunities to grow, but not without real struggle. The professional woman, competent, capable, and who walks in her own authority is one side. The professional man, competent, capable, and who walks in his own authority is on the other side. Somehow the two sides must become one without losing two.

How does the "we are one" not extinguish the I and the you. In Zen we talk about a release of the self, yet the self is our basic unit. "I" brush my teeth, "we" don't. On the other hand, "we" are in relationship. What does this mean? How is it operationalized?

Judy talked with some friends whose basic identity in relationship is "we". She says they have an agreement to give over their own needs, likes, dislikes, in service to the other. Judy sees them as interdependent. I see them as each dependent. As a survivor of so much trauma, I am deeply suspect of dependence. Its part of that dance of intimacy we PTSD folks seem to do.

Interdependence is one thing, dependence a fully different thing. I wonder though, how, as Judy has asked, to operationalize this.

I know that next time I will be at Judy's side. To do this I must make a choice.There are three parties to this relationship: Me; Her; and Us. It is the Us that gets short shrift. I admit this. In Zen we practice to burn away the self. In this practice we begin to see the self is not an independent existant, but an interconnected, living process. So, while there is a Me, a You, and an Us. There is also none of that, just the one vast process. In my practice, I have been focusing so much attention on getting to the top of that hundred foot pole and so little attention to exactly where my next step will fall that I nearly always place my foot in the larger world, neglecting that world just outside of me.

It is time to re-place that foot.

Be well,
Part C:

With Palms Together,

OK, so, why share all of this?

I get this question a lot. Why do I feel the need to share the personal details of my life?

An answer as best I can:

As a Zen Teacher, my life is not my own. When I became a Zen priest, I took a vow to free all beings, to relieve them from suffering, etc. To do this, one must realize that self and other are the same. We free ourselves: we free all beings. Its all very existential and has to do with the experience of humanity as an individual with the aim of living a collective awareness and responsibility.

My suffering is your suffering, more or less and as I practice to work things through, I feel it (that practice) is my teaching. Of course, it is important to keep some things private. And to respect, as much as possible, the anonymity of those in my life I write about, but in the end, it is this transparency that gives rise to an open heart and a well grounded, no nonsense practice.

We are all human beings. A Zen Master is no less or no more. This is true of all other faith traditions, priests, monks, imams, buddhas or bodhisattvas, as well. Writing as I do ensures this for me and, I hope, communicates to you that what is possible here, is also possible there.

May we each be blessings in the universe.
A bow to each of you, my teachers.