Two monks are arguing about a flag. One says, “The flag is moving.” The other, “The wind is moving.” A third walks by and says, “Not the wind, not the flag; the mind is moving.”
A few years back I attended a Zendo, a Buddhist meditation retreat. During the three days of the retreat each of us had the opportunity to spend a few minutes in private conversation with the Roshi, the Zen master leading the session.
When my turn came, I found myself alone in a chilly room, bowing and sitting cross-legged on the bare floor. Roshi Pat sat on a low platform across from me. He was on a cushion with his long robes covering his legs, but I assumed or at least imagined him in full lotus. His unblinking eyes looked at mine and he asked me to tell him about my practice.
I shared that I began to practice to ease my anxiety about dying. He said, “You fear death,” more as an affirmation than a question. I nodded and weakly said yes. “ What about death frightens you?” he asked.
“Extinction. Being erased, gone forever.”
He tilted his chin upwards and his eyes seemed to penetrate more deeply into my own. “Well, what if that is all there is?”
“What?” I’d heard him but was stunned by the bluntness both of the question and his tone.
“Think about that,” he urged. “How will you live?”
It took several years of thinking on this question before I had a momentary insight. If I am living in fear of an inescapable event then I am already extinct. Any meaning my life is to have will be the result of what I do between this moment and the uncertainty of the inevitable departure from this body, this life. The courage to aspire, to help others, to grow in wisdom and experience is always there. I began to strive to act, even in fear, in order to show courage and create some temporal meaning amidst the possibility of meaninglessness. The work continues but I am no longer fearful of extinction. There are no guarantees, there is just now.
I remember this scene often when I am anxious or upset by the state of the world. This year, watching the very foundation of most of what I felt was safe, certain, and forever about being born a citizen of the United States be undermined, desecrated, and repurposed to fit the narcissistic desires of one person, aided and abetted by the largest collection of greedy, heartless courtiers and with the terrified and angry acquiescence of half the country’s population has rekindled that existential crisis in me, and not just for myself but for the whole of humanity.
There is some new foundation crack every day, another structure once considered impregnable breached, and even when I think these egregious despotic actions have reached their lowest possible expression, the cruel actors in this unfolding tragedy find a way to sink still lower.
So today I found myself again hearing the voice of Roshi Pat. How will I live when I am powerless to stop the destruction and desecration of the ground upon which America, my America, had grown to be what felt like a true beacon of hope, not perfect but in great measure always striving?
I am going to create meaning, at least for myself. This little essay is a step toward that. And I pose this question to any who are now living in fear. How will you live if the worst you can imagine is true? Think about it. You have almost limitless, untried choices.
American Vedic Astrology 