Working with Loneliness
Photo by Parsing Eye
There is a real medicine for loneliness. Reaching in all the ways we do to assuage it only touches its surface. How can we truly root out the hunger that keeps our phones in our hand and our gaze outward?
Zuisei teaches how the heart of Zen, a practice of being completely and intimately alone, is the most powerful way to face the heart of loneliness, and to shed the ignorance that sustains it.
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard. See below for transcript.
Transcript
Transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Before I start I want to bring my teacher into the room—Shugen Roshi, in particular. He’s been with me: I think sesshin reminds me of all of those times, all of those hours, upon hours, upon hours, that I sat in the same room with him, that I went in to do face to face teaching with him, that I heard his bell ringing me out, that I heard his bell inviting me to go deeper. I hope, I pray, I invoke my own wish, that I honor even a little bit of the work that he did with me—continues to do with me in a different way—in my work with you. May I repay even a little bit of that grace.
There's a story by Karen Russell, American writer, called “Bog Girl.” It's an odd story. Karen Russell writes—I'm not sure what to call it. One of her books is Vampires in the Lemon Grove, just to give you a sense. “Bog Girl” appeared in The New Yorker some years ago. It's about an Irish boy, a teenager, really, who finds a girl in the bog. I think, in certain bogs, there's some combination of compounds that causes bodies to remain preserved. In a slightly different way that happens here in Mexico. You've probably heard of the mummies of Mexico. They’re not bodies, they really are mummies. They're pretty horrible, and kind of striking, let's say, to look at. I remember going to see the mummies as a child myself. This is completely a sidetrack, but I want to tell you about the mummies—it's Mexico, so the way they set up the museum, it’s kind of like a hanger. You're going through a tunnel in a sense. The mummies are in these glass cases. There are adults, males and females, and babies, who have died of natural causes, and who have not died of natural causes, etc. Their color is kind of brownish. So you're looking at maybe two dozen or more glass cases of these mummies. When you come out they have these candies in exactly the shape and the color of these mummies. I mean, who thought of that! You're supposed to buy them, and eat them, and enjoy them, I guess. It's very strange. This is not that. These bodies in the bogs are not intact, for obvious reasons, but they're pretty well preserved.
The story begins with this teenager finding this girl in the bog. He becomes enamored of her. She's very beautiful. So, he pulls her out and takes her home. For the next few months, he lives with this bog girl to his mom's chagrin—his mom's horror really. They sit her at the table, and they have lunch. Of course, the girl is just sitting there, she can't speak, she can’t do anything. This boy becomes more and more enamored of the bog girl until the day when she wakes up. She comes to life due to his love. She sees him and is completely enamored in turn. All of this love and care and attention that she's received over these many months bring her to life, and she wants to give it back. She starts to walk towards him. He completely freaks out and runs out of the house. The mother realizes, Okay, he's come to his senses, and convinces him to return the girl to the bog, which he promptly does.
Now, why am I bringing this up? Why am I bringing it up during sesshin?
I've been thinking about loneliness. I've been thinking about the ways that we try to assuage it, all the many, I think, largely ineffective ways in which we try to first make it go away and if we can't, to buffer it, then if we can't, to change it in some form. While we've been sitting together in silence mostly, I've been feeling again, very strongly, the medicine that being with yourself in such an intimate way can be. I've also bringing my friends here in Playa del Carmen, into the room. I now have a very wonderful, small community of friends. I was thinking of some of them in relation to loneliness. Most of them don't practice, and I see their ways of reaching for the thing, the person, the experience that will mitigate that loneliness. I was trying to think of how to speak of what zazen does specifically for this work with loneliness—how to express to someone that being so completely alone with yourself can show you the almost logical absurdity of loneliness.
As long as we stay on the surface of our lives and as long as we turn outward to look for those things, places, or people who comfort us, that loneliness might get alleviated for a little bit, but the real medicine for this is to realize what aloneness truly is. Like that Dr. Bronner's soap—All-One—that it actually really is all one. That is the truth of each of our lives. But, if I was to say to someone, just be by yourself for a little bit, would they believe that is in fact the way to deal with what a number of writers have called a Pandemic of Loneliness? I don't mean to imply that just by sitting down and being still and following your breath that, all of a sudden, everything is going to be great, and you're never going to feel lonely again. But what I am suggesting is that there is something that happens in that closeness that can't really happen as long as our attention is turned outward.
We are social beings. Probably 9 out of 10 of us will still look for that connection, that relationship, that interaction, and that is wonderful. That is wonderful. Each of us could just sit at home and do sesshin—just be with ourselves, be with our breath, be with a question, and yet we do it together, of course. So, it doesn't mean that you never relate to somebody else. But I think of, now, more than ever, the ease with which we can externalize. We can look for that quick hit from a phone especially: the like, the little interaction, the text, the ping, whatever it is. I didn’t used to have a phone, but I do now and I feel that difference. I turned off my phone during this weekend sesshin, but I had to use it a couple of times. I watched and felt that impulse—it's more like a hunger, really. It is a hunger. I’ve been reflecting on how this thing that we're most ravenous for, that connection, is what we're also most terrified of, and that in moments when something happens and the walls drop away, and we really feel that closeness, how frightening that can be. The practice of cultivating true aloneness does require great courage. You have to be willing to go through the craving, the reaching, the stopping, the holding, the resting in yourself. Although it's true that we can find a little bit of comfort in some things, ultimately, the medicine requires that strength, that resilience, to do what I often talk about as standing on your own two feet. Of course, no one else can do it for you. And no one else can give it to you.
In my years of practice, I remember being at the monastery and being surrounded by people. 30 people day in and day out and up to 100 or more people on a weekend. I was with people all the time. And for years, probably 10 or 15 years, I felt lonely. For some of that time I was in a relationship, an intimate relationship, and I felt lonely. Then one day, I didn't. I've been reflecting on that. I don't think the shift was just like that. I think something happened gradually over time. But I remember noticing the absence of loneliness. I didn't feel it again until I went to New York City, and I was, again, surrounded by people. I was living with people. I wasn't close to them, per se, but you know, we got along well. I was constantly in crowds of people, and I felt lonely. What I attribute that to now is something subtle and something that pains me a little bit to admit but I think it's true—I was looking for something from them. The people that I was surrounded by, that I was close to, I wanted something from them. I wanted admiration or at the very least attention. I wanted somebody to see me and pay attention to me. I don't mean that in a profound way. I just wanted to be validated, which again, all of us want. Yet, I also acknowledge that when I don't need that, when I fully cover the ground upon which I stand and I really do feel that, then any interaction is a boon. How wonderful to spend time with you! And if I don't have it—How wonderful to spend time with myself! That was the difference.
I think in all sorts of relationships with family, in intimate relationships, in friendships, there is always some element of wanting something, expecting something from someone. Maybe there are people who have very pure interactions with others. I think for most of us there is an element of wanting something. It's that relinquishment of our power, of our strength, that is what drains us and what creates a sense of lack.
The poem that I've quoted a number of times in the past that somebody shared with me some years ago also kept coming up for me during sesshin, “St. Francis and the Sow.” I’ve been thinking of the line you have to reteach a thing its loveliness—how true that is, how necessary that is, and how possible that is. If you didn't learn it from somebody else, if you were not told you were lovely by your parents, by your peers, by your partner, then you have to teach yourself. It's not unreasonable to expect that kind of attention from someone else, but you can't wait for it. I think that's my point. Sitting on your seat, standing on your ground, you teach yourself that loveliness. Then lo and behold, it gets reflected. Life has a wonderful way of working in that respect. When that is coming from you, then it starts to be reflected everywhere.
But then as Daido Roshi used to say all the time, when somebody praises you—”Oh, thank you so much.” Somebody says you're awful and criticizes you—”Oh, okay, that's up to them, not up to me.” Maybe then there's something to do, but you understand the point. That phrase, no creature ever fails to cover the ground upon which it stands, is always true. But, in a way, it's rarely true for each of us—we have to discover that it is true and that it always was.
Buddha nature is the potential for buddhahood, the potential for that awakened nature to be realized and manifested, and it is also the expression of that Buddha nature. It is the expression of that buddhahood. So trees, rocks, and animals, as far as we know, are fully who they are, they fully cover the ground. They do not doubt themselves. They just fulfill their being completely. Because of the way that we're wired, we actually need to make that connection for ourselves and then live it.
So sometimes you have to reteach the thing its loveliness so that it flowers, from within, of self-blessing. I love that phrase too—so that it flowers of self-blessing. What does it mean to bless yourself? We don't normally use that word in Zen. Just keep that, keep that question close. What does it mean to bless yourself? That's enough.
Explore further
01 : Bog Girl by Karen Russell
02 : Saint Francis and the Sow by Galway Kinnell
03 : Eight Realizations Of Great Beings (VI): Practicing The Pandemic with Vanessa Zuisei Goddard
04: Coming Home with Zuisei Goddard