This is not a new story: life is a journey, a pilgrimage. I do not like to feel this way, but this year feels like the longest year, and I wish it were over. So I decided to return to some memories and stories and of how others have accompanied me on this both wonderful and crazy ride. For that, I am most grateful.
Here are two stories:
PART I
The writer, Jay Martin, has been my mentor, analyst, and friend, and met up with me many times to accompany me . He has walked with me, helped me “unscrew doors… from their jambs”*, kick some doors in, imagine new ones and sometimes just sat with me when there was nothing more to be done.
His book, Journey To Heavenly Mountain An American’s Pilgrimage to the Heart of Buddhism in Modern China is part memoir, travel journal and spiritual sojourn. It begins with the following:
How To Climb A Mountain
Given to Jay Martin in the forest solitude above Tiantong temple, August 10, 1998.
‘To climb a mountain, never begin at the bottom. Start at the summit and then climb past the rooftops of the world, to the heaven-beyond-heaven”.
PART II
At some point in her journey, the writer, Laurie Anderson decides to vow to be kind for the rest of her life and then has second thoughts. Here are her recollections:
DON’T LIMIT YOURSELF
“In the Tibetan map of the world, the world is a circle, and at the center there is an enormous mountain guarded by four gates. And when they draw a map of the world, they draw the map in sand, and it takes months and then when the map is finished, they erase it throw the sand into the nearest river.
Last fall the Dalai Lama came to New York City to do a two-week ceremony called the Kalachakra which is a prayer to heal the earth. And woven into these prayers were a series of vows to be kind for the rest of my life. And I walked out of there and I thought: For the rest of my life?? What have I done? This is a disaster!
And I was really worried. Had I promised too much? Not enough? I was really in a panic. They had come from Tibet for the ceremony and they were walking around midtown in their new brown shoes and I went up to one of the monks and said, ‘Can you come with me to have cappuccino right now and talk?’ And so we went to this little Italian place. He had never had coffee before so he kept talking faster and faster and I kept saying, ‘Look, I don’t know whether I promised too much or too little. Can you help me please?’
And he was really being practical. He said, ‘Look, don’t limit yourself. Don’t be so strict! Open it up!” He said, “The mind is a wild horse and when you make a corral for it make sure it’s not too small. And another thing: when your house burns down, just walk away. And another thing: keep your eyes open.
And one more thing: Keep moving. Cause it’s a long way home. ‘”
——Laurie Anderson, “Wild White Horses”
What Book!? Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop
edited by Gary Gach
Be well,
Marlene
I took this photograph a couple years ago in my favorite, Grand Tetons National Park
*Walt Whitman from Leaves of Grass
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