Simplicity, Solitude, Emptiness (2)

Ordinary men hate solitude.  But the Master makes use of it, embracing his aloneness, realizing he is one with the whole universe. - Lao-Tsu in the Zen Calendar (August 18, 2009).

You do not need to leave your room.  Remain sitting at your table and listen.  Do not even listen, simply wait.  Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary.  The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice.  It will roll in ecstasy at your feet. - Franz Kafka in the Zen Calendar (May 19, 2006).

When I dance, I dance; when I sleep, I sleep; yes, and when I walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts drift to far-off matters for some part of the time I lead them back again to the walk, the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitude, to myself. - Montaigne in the Zen Calendar (August 30, 2009).

In royal solitude you walk the universe. - Wu-Men in the Zen Calendar (May 29, 2006).

Only in solitude do we find ourselves. - Miguel de Unamuno in the Zen Calendar (July 15, 2006).

Day 339. When I was born in 1961, the world's population was 3.080 billion.  Sometime in 2011, the population of the planet is expected to top 7 billion.  The number of people on earth has doubled in the first 50 years of my life.  And it's NOW that I crave solitude?!

Observing people in public places fascinates me.  I don't think this is singularly attributable to my profession; I, too am a member of the species, and glean important data from watching my fellow humans.  Current observations lead me to conclude that the generation presently coming of age is incapable of solitude.  If awake (and often when not), it seems as though they must be in constant, ongoing contact with some other form of human life.  The modality varies from a tightly packed meld of bubbly estrogen moving as an amorphous mass through the mall to a disparate scattering of thumb-jabbing, wrist-twitching gamers shouting instructions to one another through headsets as they slay a communal beast battled collectively  via the internet.   Tune me in, turn me on, beam me up.  Text me, tweet me, skype me, call me - just DON'T leave me alone - not even for a second - lest I experience a thought that isn't immediately made known to another.  Lest I look within, and find that - without a cable, a chord, a microchip, an oft-traveled circuit of cyberspace - I cease to exist.

I intend for my comments to be observations, not criticisms, though I do feel a modicum of concern for my son and his peers.  As inconceivable as it sounds (and to him, it is utterly unfathomable),  a moment in time may arrive when there isn't access to another being.  When the myriad mechanisms providing unceasing interpersonal stimulation abruptly cease.  When a human encounter requires eye-to-eye contact.  And then what?  Panic?  Decompensation?  Despair?  Spontaneous combustion?

As reassuring - nay, necessary - as constant contact seems to be for most people under the age of 40, it also seems to have made discretion a thing of the past, and narcissistic self-centeredness the inevitable state of the present.  The healthy "pause" for reflection and second thought that used to be required by a busy signal, concern over  long-distance fees, or even the girlfriend's dad being the one who picked up the phone, is no longer socialized into young people's consciousness.  They just act.  And text.  And type.  And talk.  And post.  And push "send" faster than any set of neurons could ever contemplate the appropriateness of what was being expressed.

Perhaps the greatest toll exacted by the void of solitude is missing the sublime moments in life that can only occur when we are alone.  I am thinking of a few of my own:  Sitting alone munching sushi, watching the sun drop into the China Sea after riding my rented bicycle to a shore in Okinawa.  Relaxing on a bench outside the ancient walled city of Rothenburg, Germany and contemplating what it must have been like to live there in 1070.  Bowing prostrate nine times in an ancient Buddhist temple in Kamakura, Japan.  Planing across Lake Hefner in a constant 25 mph wind, the hot pink of my windsurfer sail indistinguishable against the flames of an Indian Summer sunset.  Rocketing down Lower Stauffenberg, my favorite run at Taos Ski Valley, as fresh powder glinted off my goggles.  Resting on a rock at Clear Bay trail during a solo ride for my 36th birthday, my faithful Spalding leaning against a nearby tree.  Sitting on a sofa cushion, night after solitary night, breathing my breath and creating space for quiet.

Cultivate solitude.  Welcome it, embrace it, cherish it.  Let the world roll in ecstasy at your feet.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc






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