Originally published on the Pine Mountain Buddhist Temple website.

Since the old Zen Writings were done in times when people were much closer to nature than we in our urbanized society are, it makes sense that some of the images we find there come to life when we spend time in the great outdoors.  Recently I had my little tent set up on a beautiful mountainside, not far from a rushing creek, and surrounded by aspen and pine trees.  The path to my tent led through a flowering meadow, into a wooded area, and in the midst of that was what I called a forest charnel ground, where a stand of pine trees had been blown over in a storm a long time ago.  The trees were well into decay, bigger branches lying around like skeleton bones, and the trunks overgrown with moss and lichens, but still recognizable as trunks.   The place was very quiet and dark and lovely: after the picture postcard beauty of the surrounding mountain views, a perfect reminder that death is an essential part of life and no less beautiful.

One thing in particular struck me: when the trees fell over they did not break—being healthy and strong—but they toppled over so that their root ball came out of the ground.  Over the years the rain and gravity washed out the dirt and grit from in between the roots, but larger rocks were still sitting there, held in place by old dead roots.  An impressive sight.

“Here born we clutch at things…”¹; that made me think of how when we are born we find ourselves in a family and society that are like the soil for our new baby roots to grow in.  The soil can be anything from very nourishing to pretty poor and full of gravel and rocks, or even at times what seems to be no more than simply a crack in a rock.  Most people experience a mixture, and growing up we develop a healthy sense of self by accepting and integrating these values or rebelling against them.  Because these ideas and values are there from the start, it can be difficult to recognize them as something we believe as opposed to something that is really true.  Like everyone else, I found myself in a family and society with all kinds of customs and values firmly in place, but even as a very young child I asked a lot of questions.  Most of the time, in my memory, the answer would be: “because I say so”, or “don’t think about that, just go ahead and do as you are told.”   Noncompliance was met with seriously unpleasant consequences, so I learned to weave my childhood roots around those rocks, and actually found they gave me stability and something to hold, and in the meantime working my way in between and around those rocks made my roots stronger.

One of the questions I struggled with was to do with eating meat: as a very young child I played in the back yard with chickens and rabbits that later that day would be dinner.  My refusal to eat my friends was met with strong words and even punishment, and eventually I gave in and ate what I was given.  As a teenager I tried again but now there were long and painful arguments, which ended in: “you have to give a good example to your siblings (of eating what is offered), and even: “but it is so good, and good for you”.  Not until I had left home and lived on my own was I able to follow my initial reluctance to eat meat, but interestingly, it turned out that by now my ‘roots’ had grown around this ‘rock’ and I had developed a taste for some kinds of meat and a habit of eating it.  So it took a few years and some serious soul searching before I completely let go of meat-eating.

Another large rock I picked up along the way was the belief in Original Sin.  The very kind nuns at my school taught us that at the very core of our being there is a big black sin and only through various practices (which I forget) can that be forgiven.  And all the time we are on the verge of falling back.  I had been a Buddhist monk for almost two years when I found I was holding back in my meditation.  It was subtle at first and then became a clear block, and caused me much pain.  Why was I afraid to go deeper?  It took a while before I realized that deep down, even though I did not think I was still subscribing to being a Catholic, I still ‘knew’ that if I would go deep into my own heart I would find this rotten core…..and I did not want to go there.  So then, I did what the Buddha and my teacher recommended: slowly and bravely I sat still with my fear and opened my eyes to see what was really there.   All I found was a loving peaceful sense of being completely accepted, instead of the opposite which I had believed for so long.

Once we begin the long and difficult ‘unwinding’ of ourselves in the process of deepening meditation and training, from time to time we find that we are holding on to an idea about life or our self, or an opinion or standard, that is causing us pain.  Seeing the suffering and how we cause it is the beginning of wanting to let go of it, and it turns out that often this is easier said than done.  I have had standards of training for myself that were just about, or really impossible, to meet, and to admit to myself that I was the one who invented those was a slightly embarrassing and very freeing thing to do.  It can seem to be life-threatening to let go of such a standard because the belief that, if we are not keeping a tight grip on our potential for greed, aversion and delusion, we will end up behaving badly can be very strong.  Only a lot of gentle encouragement and experimenting with loosening up just a little will help develop the trust in our own good heart and the power of transformation that the meditation and Precepts give us.   Just as the trees, long after they are dead and long after they get any benefit from holding on to their rocks are still doing so from sheer habit—the roots have grown that way and will only let go once they are thoroughly decomposed—so we too find old habits have a lot of strength.

Note

1. Sandōkai, from The Liturgy of the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives for the Laity, Shasta Abbey Press, Mt. Shasta, 1987.