The Whole Earth is Our Hospital

You can ponder scripture.   

Or you can ponder the events of daily life. 

It's all the same...

I am reminded of words spoken to a retreat director, by an elderly nun, who simply told him – after a long, long silence - during which he sensed that something really profound was being pondered:  “Father," she insisted, "Everything leads to God.   Everything.   Everything.   Everything.”

Now it's nice when that “everything” is a sunny morning in Spring.  A cloudless sky, intense blue hovering over dewy grass that hasn't yet been mowed.  Plants springing up, everything budding, unless already leafed out.  Like this morning.  How easy it is to let that lead you to God!

But that's not what this post is about.

I have another quote in mind, related to the spiritual path being “not about self-improvement but about self-abandonment.” But what does that mean?  And how does it relate to the quiet certainty of an elderly nun? How does it relate to something I read this morning about “temperament” in a sport one generally connects with politeness, green grass and the beauty of nature?  And what benefit can we glean from this?

Consider these interesting thoughts from a sports writer:

All golfers understand intuitively the pursuit of that blend of Zen calm and athletic aggressiveness that goes hand-in-hand with the best performance.

[Versus] … a perfectionist’s torment, dropping clubs, closing his eyes in disgust, his whole body deflating as he missed putts.

You glimpse how mercilessly golf waits for your serenity, your sense of self or skill or dignity, to alter or deteriorate, or simply change in any way, so that it can drive you deeper into your private perditions — all while you perform in public.  

Under pressure, his current temperament … [coming] precariously close to disintegrating.

Elite-level golf, where every act takes place as you stand isolated, demands more of us than many religions and offers less support. Are we forgiving of ourselves? Do we feel persecuted or unlucky? Any lack of self-esteem reveals itself. Are we jealous of those who are more gifted or getting good breaks? Do we look for excuses or ways to shift blame? Can we be satisfied with our best effort, or is a successful result essential? Are we forgiving of ourselves?

What especially caught my eye was this: “the pursuit of that blend of Zen calm and athletic aggressiveness” .... [which] “demands more of us than many religions and offers less support.”   Um... no.  I beg to differ!

To paraphrase the elderly nun:  Everything points us in the direction of Holy Mystery.   Everything asks of us self-abandonment.  Selflessness.  Letting go of efforts to force things, to control them.  Even while practicing one's craft.  Be it prayer.  Be it work.  Be it play.

There are many Zen stories and Sufi stories, stories of religious saints of whatever persuasion where you find that it is the gardener or the cook or the servant who has attained that blend of “Zen calm” and transformed “aggression” - which is the mark of a true saint.  A person of total compassion and ego-emptiness, a person of pin-point being in the moment, able to speak or act true to the moment.  That's the nothingness I keep circling in post after post.  The emptiness which is a kind of readiness based on long experience with just the very kind of difficulties described by the writer above.   But instead of “golf” let us substitute “life”:

You glimpse how mercilessly [life] waits for your serenity, your sense of self or skill or dignity, to alter or deteriorate, or simply change in any way, so that it can drive you deeper into your private perditions — all while you perform in public.

Now, you're probably thinking that what “drive[s] you deeper into your private perditions” isn't necessarily a public act. But maybe you can agree with the rest of it.

I think the key problem is letting go of “performing”. Letting go of performance.  That's where self or ego become problematic.  That's when we aren't really being in the moment but instead have become spectators of our own performance.   Evaluators!

So any person who seeks anything at all bumps up against this struggle.  This need to practice while simultaneously letting go of attainment, letting go of self-consciousness.   It's the same whether we're discussing meditation or Tai-Chi or chopping vegetables for stir-fry.  It all starts with desire to achieve.   With the mustering of effort – which means an aspect of “aggression” enters in.  The “drive” to achieve relates to aggression.  Aggression can be our friend.   And aggression can be our enemy.

And I wonder if one's whole (spiritual) life is nothing more than this wresting match – I'm thinking of Jacob wrestling all night with the angel.   And I'm thinking of a line from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets:

The whole earth is our hospital

Endowed by the ruined millionaire,

Wherein, if we do well, we shall

Die of the absolute paternal care

That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

And remember, the wrestling match ended with Jacob being given a new name, but only after his hip socket has been dislocated (permanently!) “because you have contended with the divine and have prevailed.”  Prevailed?  Not exactly, I'd say.  Not in the sense of achieving.   Only in the sense of personal transformation – through struggle – and at a price.  The loss of one's former self.  A kind of death.  In exchange for a new perspective:  A graced gift.