Under the Cherry Tree

Well, I started this blog and then left for the Southwest for two weeks, so I'm just getting back to writing. My husband, Doug, and I were traveling throughout Arizona and New Mexico. We took in some of the “greatest hits” of the natural world, hiking in the Grand Canyon and on the beautiful trails of Sedona, and we also enjoyed the richness of the art and culture of Santa Fe. It was also an interfaith pilgrimage of sorts, as we visited some spiritual centers of various faiths. We stayed overnight at the Neem Karoli Baba Ashram in Taos, where they have a Hanuman Temple (honoring the Hindu monkey god), and we visited the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe. We toured a Native American Pueblo near Taos, and visited the Santuario de Chimayo, where 300,000 Catholics make pilgrimages each year, often on foot, to experience what is believed to be the miraculous healing powers contained within the soil there. We collected some of the dry, red dirt, which we will use for a healing ritual at Common Heart.

When we were at the Upaya Zen Center, we were fortunate to attend a dharma talk by Roshi Joan Halifax, the founder of the Center. She spoke of how she had just come back from a trip to China and Japan. In Japan the cherry trees were just blooming, and there were groups of people everywhere celebrating the blossoming by sitting under the trees getting completely drunk. And she noted how that was a really “interesting” way to respond to the awakening of spring. Why celebrate with numbing out, with doing something that makes us unconscious?

Roshi Joan went on to suggest that we can choose to respond in a different way. We can choose to pay exquisite close attention to what is going on around us. We can be completely present while enjoying the blossoming. “Our lives are so short,” she said. “Why not be fully awake? Why not live like a Buddha?” And for some of us the Buddha may be Christ, or Mohammed, or some other being who inspires us, who call us to be awake, to be courageous, to embody Love.

And this being awake includes all of life—we can be awake to the beauty and the miraculous cycles of nature, and also to the pain and suffering that humans experience. The Dalai Lama, in response to the current crisis in Tibet, has said “My heart is breaking, and I still sleep at night.”

Can we let our hearts break, and still sleep at night? The words of the Dalai Lama remind us that there is a way to open to the suffering and heartbreak of the world, and still rest in the deep peace of God (or, our true nature, as another way of framing it).

So, friends, may you take in the beauty of the blossoming with full awareness, AND be willing to let your heart break for what is going on in Tibet, in Iraq, in Darfur, or perhaps in your own life. May you be present to all of it, and may you sleep in peace each night.