Go Sort Yourself

We sit to settle the self on the self and let the flower of our life force bloom. - Dainin Katagiri in the Zen Calendar (August 17, 2004).

Day 255. The British are coming! The British are coming!

Dear friends of my family arrived from England a couple of nights ago. This means that my mom, the Poster Woman for Anglophiles, will be speaking in an Okie tainted British accent for the next couple of weeks. Delightful twists on vocabulary will also temporarily appear: the car trunk is the boot, flashlights are torches, umbrellas are brollies, trucks are lorries, and - best of all - hikes are tramps! Mom and I were in England in September of last year, and Jim took me on an amazing nine-mile hike across the Yorkshire countryside. I have pictures of every stile I crossed; they are irresistibly picturesque. Jim was a pillar of patience. In England, such treks are called "tramps." There are many tramping groups proliferating the moors of northern England. I have been looking forward to guiding Jim on an Oklahoma Tramp for months.

So many British customs are Zen practices, though I'm sure the Queen wouldn't label them as such! Our friends are from northern England, near Harrogate, where traditional British civilities are preserved. They observe "afternoon tea," sometimes formal, sometimes informal (a blog about that particular ritual may be forthcoming). My second favorite English habit is that of "sorting yourself."

When we are in England, our friends take us on day trips to magical places like the village where the Bronte sisters grew up, the town where "Last of the Summer Wine" is filmed, and seaside cities like Scarborough. We almost always have lunch at a local country pub, and we always stop for tea in the late afternoon. That is simply the way our days are done. Relaxed, rhythmic, and orderly. As late evening descends, we pull into the driveway and pile out of the car, weary and content. Then, as predictable as the changing of the guard, Pam sings out in her lyrical British voice, "All right, everyone. Go sort yourselves."

"Sorting yourself" means to go to your room, put down your purse, backpack, shopping bags, and other day trip accumulation, wash your hands, take off your shoes, smooth your hair, get a drink, open the window, and quite possibly have a very brief "lie down" (British terms capture the essence of things so much more completely than American English). The cardinal rules of "sorting" are: Don't Talk and Sort Alone. Brilliant. Who but the British would weave into the fabric of every outing a defined period with the specific purpose of rest, processing the day, and gathering yourself for the remainder of the evening. In the household of our friends, sorting usually lasted between 15 and 30 minutes, depending on dinner plans. It became one of my favorite parts of the day.

As I write this, I am reminded of a very early blog I wrote about the foyer of the country house. I described the idea of a buffer between inner home and outer world. "Sorting" is the time and emotional equivalent of the physical function served by the foyer. It makes such perfect psychological sense. I am absolutely convinced that Sorting is the reason I have such vivid and accurate recall of my day trips across England. I also credit it with my relaxed and pleasurable evenings. The cultural custom of formally designating time between segments of the day is such a refreshing contradiction to the American tendency to "time crunch" - that annoying American custom of cramming twenty hours worth of activity into ten hours, so that little of the day's frenetic buzz is fully experienced or recalled.

Buddhists sort through sitting. Zazen is a way of sorting the self, gathering the day's busyness together and gently stepping away from it, sifting through and settling down. It helps me rest and prepare for what comes next. I am going to go sort myself on the cushion. And prepare for a spectacular tramp.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc