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| Spring Photo by Jan |
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.
- Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
In 1978 I was invited to come by the Zen Center in San Francisco to meet the Roshi (Abbot), Richard Baker, known as Baker Roshi. I was met at the door by a young woman who met all my East Coast expectations of what a California Zen Buddhist looks like – serious, serene, long robe, gliding instead of walking. She silently guided me to the middle of an empty dim hall to await the holy man.
After a California minute (a half hour here in Maine), Baker Roshi blew into the room, all hearty and loud and extremely energetic – maybe like someone you’d meet at King Eider’s Pub on a Friday night over in Damariscotta. He gave a wave of his wrist behind his waist to dismiss the entourage at his heels, and without saying hello or asking how (or who) I was, he grabbed my arm and said, “Come on! Have a look at something incredible!
The Roshi propelled me into the basement and swept his hand like a circus impresario towards an alcove sheltering…….a huge Xerox machine.
Those big Xeroxes had a stack of bins down one side to collate, and looked like they could eat up an entire forest in minutes. 34 years ago, that machine was cutting edge. Anyway I don’t know what I had been expecting, but it wasn’t a major Zen priest brimming over at length about a copying machine. If the Roshi was playing the trickster to shake up my stereotypes, he succeeded. But as I got to know him, I think not. Anyway, after going on about his new copier, Baker went to storage in a different part of the basement and handed me a copy of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, written by his teacher Suzuki Roshi, with a preface by the redoubtable Houston Smith, and a foreward by Baker himself.
Baker said, “This is what you need. I’ll have someone show you out.”
So I read the book. Many people like this book, because it’s understandable - it makes sense across varying beliefs. At intervals since that day, I’ve revisited parts of the book to gain a beginner’s mind about beginner’s mind: to try to see what I’m not seeing, to see the ordinary in my life as if for the first time.
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| Spring Photo by Jan |
Always go with the workers.
- My Grandmother Rose’s last words to me
Leaving the rarified ether of Zen Buddhism aside for a moment, let’s think about the mud and pink slime of politics. As my grandmother's quote may tell you, I was raised by some people for whom solidarity was the first through fifth commandment. This went way further than labor ideology: for my mother’s side of the family, it came from a La Brea tar pit of fear about “them,” the dominant culture lying in wait, just biding its time for the fatal blow.
I was taught that the best if not only defense was to never ever betray your own. In a way, my mom and her kin hewed to the standard practice of people who are militant followers: find out what the party line is, and adhere to it entirely and exclusively; learn who are the proper people to support, and then work your liver and spleen out for them.
These days, our mainstream two-party governing has moved from nonfunctional to destructive and maybe hopeless. After years of arguing with third party advocates from the Socialists or the New Party, or with supporters of Nader or Perot or Anderson (remember him?), I’ve started all over again.
I’m not opposing the Democratic Party I’ve voted for in every election. I’m not looking for a different party or a third party or a maverick. With Suzuki’s help, after trying to have a clear-eyed look at my political self, I’m dropping the tactic of solidarity itself.
In organizing school – broadly defined – we learn about how to achieve social change through building movements. Structures of power arranged in hierarchies promote this model. Marxism, fascism – hey, maybe Zen Buddhism - use variants of movement building to achieve and deploy communal power.
So as I try to apply fresh eyes to my politics, I’m not jumping ship from Democrats to Independents; that would be like a guy with a drinking problem switching from bourbon to scotch. Instead, how about decreasing expectations of solidarity, walking away from traditional movement building, finding a different arrangement of power?
And so we come to Occupy Wall Street. An expert mind can learn a lot from novices, even youngsters who think solidarity is a band and ILGWU a text message. I’ve been watching the Occupy movement as it breaks the rules of solidarity and many of the laws of effective organizing, while shattering the “effective messaging” sound barrier. They’re doing some great things, and they’re really screwing up big time here and there. The one reliable constant is that they’re feverishly evolving.
The unruly Occupy multitude is100% ahead of me. With their crowd sourcing and flash mobs and radical, sometimes maddening experiments in democracy, they may offer the best hope for a path out of the mess that discipline, rules and solidarity have helped create.
The more I spin my mind back to the basics of power and politics, the less I know, and therefore the more happy I am to sit back on my heels and watch. Listen. Learn.
Baker Roshi would smile, knowing that by paying attention to his lesson of 34 years, I’m even starting to feel hope.
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| (My 10-Day-Old Future Pickles) |
