Mountain Cloud

Notebook entry:

Morning one at Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, NM. Here for a residency, for how long, I’m not entirely sure; perhaps a handful of months.

Sitting at a little desk in a simply appointed cabin, looking out the window at the early morning (4:30 AM) darkness of the Santa Fe hills. Two dim lights are visible on a distant house, but mostly just my reflection in the glass. Aside from a tiny mirror in the shared bathroom in the main building, this reflection is the only other visual suggestion of ‘me’ to be seen here. Naturally, the ego resists this vehemently. Any project that has as a bi-product the weakening of the ego will always be met with firm resistance. Its own existential angst.

Here I am doing exactly what I want to be doing, where I want to be doing it, and yet the mind loves to suggest otherwise: “What am I doing here? What a waste of time. You should be at home in Detroit, with your family, looking for a job. What about money and the future? This isn’t as comfortable and easy as at home.” But, fortunately, I can quickly see these thoughts for what they are—the ego trying to keep me safe and comfortable—and gently set them aside. Because, on a deeper level, this being ‘wasteful’ couldn’t be farther from the truth. Comfortable and easy? Not exactly. But that’s part of the point and likely just the product of the newness.

Beyond the expected resistance, I feel very at home in the simplicity of things here. There’s something about the relative austerity that works for me. Without the incredible breadth and volume of daily distractions, it’s much easier to drop below the superficial into the depths of being, into a calm, ease, and contentment that otherwise always seems just out of reach, always dependent on attaining the right set of circumstances. Of course, this too at Mountain Cloud is a set of circumstances; but, one characterized by a ‘stripping away,’ an exploration of the essence, not conditioned by our egotistic ambitions of striving, achieving, and accumulating. I’m certainly achieving nothing here, in the traditional sense.

My intentions will center on deepening awareness/presence, not as a means to any particular end, but for the doing in itself, to take delight in all of the ordinary things to be done; sometimes sitting, sometimes washing dishes, sometimes reading and writing, sometimes running. I want to explore an idea of the ‘Li of life.’ Li is a Taoist term that refers to organic patterning, originally in reference to the markings in jade or the grain in wood. It’s in going with Li—going with the grain, in common parlance—that is the skillful way to take action; an effortless effort. Is there perhaps a Li to life—an individual organic pattern of existence as manifest in and as our path through life? Is it in this ‘going-with’ our own Li that we live into the fullness of our life? Clearly more to explore there.

The other metaphysical delight of the moment is a learning from The Rigor of Angels by William Egginton (wonderful book, blending philosophy and foundations of physics). Specifically, in Medieval times (not the entertaining dinning attraction, but literally the Dark Ages: ~450-1450), the common experience of looking up at the night sky was one of looking in to the universe, in contrast to our modern view that we’re looking out from our locus of being towards the ‘edge’ of the universe. There’s a lot to this. More to come.

Speaking of books, I was pleased to learn that the book club that I’ll be joining in-flight at MC is reading Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. This happens to be one of four books that I brought with me. It’s been a couple of years since enjoying it, so I’m eager to dig back in. It’s always fascinating to see what was underlined and what notes were made in the margins at that time. Beyond this, I have some philosophical texts in the queue which I’m looking forward to (1,300 pages of Kant? Yes, please).