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Zen-ish thoughts while in Florida
Feb. 7th, 2015 08:33 amI retain the image of Sir Anthony Robinson for my blog persona as a gentle reminder not to take myself too seriously. Such wisdom as I've acquired over the 53 years of my life has largely resulted from 53 years of surviving periodic bouts of egregious stupidity. (To be clear: Sir Tony seems like a really bright guy; it's his Baldrick character from Rowan Atkinson's Blackadder series, who is shown in the icon, who embodies my ongoing blundering through life.)
Today's post arises from a recent trip to visit Florida -- more than 20 years late -- to visit my brother and his husband. I love and respect and admire my brother, for many reasons, and enjoy his company while he's visiting family and friends here in Montreal. It's Florida I dislike: I dislike the politics, dislike the climate*, dislike the tourism-suffused atmosphere, and dislike the hassle and cost of getting there. (When did air travel stop being fun? Sigh.) But those dislikes are all about excuses not to go. I finally came to the realization that I should just suck it up and go for a visit for the right reasons (i.e., to spend time with my brother) rather than rejecting the possibility for reasons that are, in the end, not important. Since we'd promised my son a trip anywhere he wanted as a reward for graduating high school, and he expressed a desire to visit his uncle, this seemed like a good opportunity.
* Even in winter, it's often too hot for me. This past trip, we went from -20°C in Montreal to more than +20°C in Florida. I've got Irish and (probably) Ukrainian blood, neither of which prepares me for the subtropics; any time the temperature rises past the top end of that range, my body starts shutting down.
In the end, I actually enjoyed myself. We spent most of the time at my brother's home, a lovely and welcoming space he has built with his husband over the years on the edge of a brackish lake. Too much good food and drink, and more sun than I like, but on the whole, I could ignore the things I dislike about Florida and concentrate on the things I do like (my brother, cool animals such as iguanas that we don't have up here, really weird tropical vegetation).
The zen tie-in for this post arises from a distinction between zen and nihilism that I learned at a Japanese Buddhist temple a few years ago and practiced while in Florida. Simplistically put, nihilism is the philosophy of despair or at least of negation of things that are of value, whereas zen emphasizes an acceptance of the transience of all things. There are more subtleties and profundities in both concepts than I have time to explore here, and I don't consider myself an expert in either -- more like a journeyman slowly acquiring knowledge through experience. The lesson I took from this distinction led me to re-examine some things in my life that benefited from such examination.
One thing I've alluded to previously here or elsewhere: As a biologist by training, my inclination is to learn the name of everything and by applying a name, to attain a certain illusory mastery over that thing. All branches of science follow this practice, and it's a powerful tool for establishing and expanding our understanding of the world. But as Magritte reminds us in his famous Ceci n'est pas une pipe painting, the word (or image) is not the thing it represents; on the contrary, it can sometimes conceal what it represents. (That's a particularly hard lesson for a writer to learn, since we tend to fetishize the primacy of words in communication.) When I first started gallivanting around the world, I made a point of learning about the plants and animals where I'd be going so that I could recognize them in the field. But for several years, I've stopped doing this and have instead started trying to appreciate them as themselves. And in so doing, I've learned to see things I wouldn't otherwise see when blinded by the labels I'd learned to apply to objects. This new way of seeing has led me to discoveries that are highly meaningful and that (ironically in the context of the next point) become stronger and more permanent parts of my memories.
A second thing is the recognition of just how scheduled, predictable, and controlled modern life can be. We apply these constraints to our lives to give ourselves the illusion that we can bind time to our will. That belief is obviously true to some extent, but in the end, it's a vain and fruitless effort: try as we may, each moment slips away from us, and we're fooling ourselves if we think otherwise. So one zen-ish skill that I'm learning is to appreciate moments for themselves, without striving to capture them or preserve them in stone. Each morning in Florida, I'd take a mug of coffee out into my brother's yard and gaze out on the lake: fish were jumping, ospreys and herons were fishing, and cormorants and ducks were paddling, but all on their own schedules, with no heed of my schedule. Instead of growing frustrated at the gaps between each new performance, I made myself relax and accept those gaps without fretting. Each slap! as a fish hit the water, and each stoop of a diving bird, occurred on its own schedule, independent of mine, and was therefore more valuable when it happened, no matter how transient. I could have filmed these things with my iPhone, but chose not to*; the memories are stronger for having experienced them without trying to "capture" them. I also spent at least an hour each day just watching the clouds pass by, seeing anoles skitter past, and listening to palm fronds clattering in a way that temperate vegetation never does.
* I do still take vacation photos, but with a different aim: not to preserve frozen moments, but rather to share them subsequently with friends and family who could not join us in our explorations.
I'm not a Buddhist, but as I get older, I find myself increasingly appreciating and being attracted to the wisdom of Buddhism. We poor Baldricks have much to learn from those who have adopted a different philosophy to life when we take the time to listen to what they have to say.
Today's post arises from a recent trip to visit Florida -- more than 20 years late -- to visit my brother and his husband. I love and respect and admire my brother, for many reasons, and enjoy his company while he's visiting family and friends here in Montreal. It's Florida I dislike: I dislike the politics, dislike the climate*, dislike the tourism-suffused atmosphere, and dislike the hassle and cost of getting there. (When did air travel stop being fun? Sigh.) But those dislikes are all about excuses not to go. I finally came to the realization that I should just suck it up and go for a visit for the right reasons (i.e., to spend time with my brother) rather than rejecting the possibility for reasons that are, in the end, not important. Since we'd promised my son a trip anywhere he wanted as a reward for graduating high school, and he expressed a desire to visit his uncle, this seemed like a good opportunity.
* Even in winter, it's often too hot for me. This past trip, we went from -20°C in Montreal to more than +20°C in Florida. I've got Irish and (probably) Ukrainian blood, neither of which prepares me for the subtropics; any time the temperature rises past the top end of that range, my body starts shutting down.
In the end, I actually enjoyed myself. We spent most of the time at my brother's home, a lovely and welcoming space he has built with his husband over the years on the edge of a brackish lake. Too much good food and drink, and more sun than I like, but on the whole, I could ignore the things I dislike about Florida and concentrate on the things I do like (my brother, cool animals such as iguanas that we don't have up here, really weird tropical vegetation).
The zen tie-in for this post arises from a distinction between zen and nihilism that I learned at a Japanese Buddhist temple a few years ago and practiced while in Florida. Simplistically put, nihilism is the philosophy of despair or at least of negation of things that are of value, whereas zen emphasizes an acceptance of the transience of all things. There are more subtleties and profundities in both concepts than I have time to explore here, and I don't consider myself an expert in either -- more like a journeyman slowly acquiring knowledge through experience. The lesson I took from this distinction led me to re-examine some things in my life that benefited from such examination.
One thing I've alluded to previously here or elsewhere: As a biologist by training, my inclination is to learn the name of everything and by applying a name, to attain a certain illusory mastery over that thing. All branches of science follow this practice, and it's a powerful tool for establishing and expanding our understanding of the world. But as Magritte reminds us in his famous Ceci n'est pas une pipe painting, the word (or image) is not the thing it represents; on the contrary, it can sometimes conceal what it represents. (That's a particularly hard lesson for a writer to learn, since we tend to fetishize the primacy of words in communication.) When I first started gallivanting around the world, I made a point of learning about the plants and animals where I'd be going so that I could recognize them in the field. But for several years, I've stopped doing this and have instead started trying to appreciate them as themselves. And in so doing, I've learned to see things I wouldn't otherwise see when blinded by the labels I'd learned to apply to objects. This new way of seeing has led me to discoveries that are highly meaningful and that (ironically in the context of the next point) become stronger and more permanent parts of my memories.
A second thing is the recognition of just how scheduled, predictable, and controlled modern life can be. We apply these constraints to our lives to give ourselves the illusion that we can bind time to our will. That belief is obviously true to some extent, but in the end, it's a vain and fruitless effort: try as we may, each moment slips away from us, and we're fooling ourselves if we think otherwise. So one zen-ish skill that I'm learning is to appreciate moments for themselves, without striving to capture them or preserve them in stone. Each morning in Florida, I'd take a mug of coffee out into my brother's yard and gaze out on the lake: fish were jumping, ospreys and herons were fishing, and cormorants and ducks were paddling, but all on their own schedules, with no heed of my schedule. Instead of growing frustrated at the gaps between each new performance, I made myself relax and accept those gaps without fretting. Each slap! as a fish hit the water, and each stoop of a diving bird, occurred on its own schedule, independent of mine, and was therefore more valuable when it happened, no matter how transient. I could have filmed these things with my iPhone, but chose not to*; the memories are stronger for having experienced them without trying to "capture" them. I also spent at least an hour each day just watching the clouds pass by, seeing anoles skitter past, and listening to palm fronds clattering in a way that temperate vegetation never does.
* I do still take vacation photos, but with a different aim: not to preserve frozen moments, but rather to share them subsequently with friends and family who could not join us in our explorations.
I'm not a Buddhist, but as I get older, I find myself increasingly appreciating and being attracted to the wisdom of Buddhism. We poor Baldricks have much to learn from those who have adopted a different philosophy to life when we take the time to listen to what they have to say.