His opening (we've hardly gotten beyond hello) is "How
are your children?". There's no standing on ceremony
with him. There's no formality with him. He simply
reaches straight into the deepest center of my heart and pulls out
the most precious things in my life and lays them bare on the
table.
I think I'm a pretty decent father. But if I spoke with anyone else
about
my children,
while I wouldn't outright lie, I might not tell the entire truth
either. At this level of intimacy, some things are ... well ...
private. With him, or at least with the way he asks
me, nothing is private, nothing is off limits. It
all comes out - in no specific order - the bad, the
ugly, the good. I realize with him it's not so much that I've got
nothing to hide. Rather, it's with him there's nothing I want to
hide. So I tell him everything. No, that's not it: I tell him
every thing. And when I'm done telling him
everything, all he says is "I got it" and that's enough for me. No
fixing or rescuing here. No
complimenting here. Just getting. We move on.
Then it's my turn, my first turn. At the risk, as it's been said,
of carrying coals to Newcastle, I open with ie I ante
up with a
Zen
story famously titled A Cup Of Tea which I read to
him. I know he's heard it before ... at least I assume he
must have heard it before. Yet given the way he
listens intently asking pertinent questions about it,
I realize I really can't say with certainty if he's
heard it before, or not. But I can say he listens
generously as if this is the first time
he's ever heard it. He listens with
beginner's
mind.
When I come to the punch line ("Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you
are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you
Zen
unless you first empty your cup?") or whatever it is you call the
kicker at the end of a good
Zen
story, he laughs. Suddenly I also laugh, overjoyed when the
realization sinks in I've given him, of all people, a touch
of classic
Zen.
While the opportunity to be relaxed enough in his company to read
to him is (at the risk of understatement) a gift and a
privilege,
this isn't just about casually reading to a
friend.
I chose this particularly telling
Zen
story because it's really what's up for me around him. There's no
doubt no more will go in if the cup's already full -
of that I'm clear. Around him I allow myself to be an empty cup.
Then, primed with this experience, I get what it is to be an empty
cup as my life for the rest of the world.
In this shimmering emptiness I get him as an ever faster evolving
insight into what's going on. Now listen: it may sound like I
should be more specific when I say that. Am I
trivializing things by saying it this way, implying
there's only one thing going on? He's an ever faster
evolving insight into what's going on with
what? There's so much going on.
There are so many goings on going on. To which
going on am I referring?
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