Chapter 6
Ten minutes into our picnic we knew that Jonathon was Taoist. He was born and raised in Canada, he really enjoyed traveling and hiking, and he was totally open - giving and receiving - to this crazy world.
He knew about Paige and my Buddhist interests and wild practice.
He knew about Lindy and her wide-eyed look into the nature of things, not closed off to any opinion or idea, and thus not fastened to any rock-hard belief or belief-system.
Jonathon looked me in the eye. “Have you ever read the Tao Te Ching?” he asked gently.
“Yes, it’s a beautiful work,” I answered, curious to hear what he had to say about it.
“If there’s one thing to take from its incredible wisdom, it’s that life will give you what you want and need if you are just open enough to accept it.”
“But life’s hard and people are in pain and most of the world’s blind,” I replied, sad-eyed. “It seems to me if you open your arms wide enough you’ll get sucker punched in the chest.”
Paige said, “But maybe you need that sucker punch.” She’s such a wise sage.
But I, caught in the Devil’s advocate’s position, and really feeling my words, said, “I don’t know. That’s an easy way to look at it. I mean, using this logic you can’t go wrong even if your back’s turned to the world.”
Jonathon was in full lotus just looking at us each individually, looking at us and then straight through. He gently said, “The world does take care of you. I was once in Spain, run down and tired with literally two dollars to my name, stashed away in my beat wallet. It was on this day that I opened my arms and gave myself to the world, giving all my faith to the fact that I was okay and things should not have been any different.”
“Wow, that’s incredible,” Lindy said. “I can’t imagine what that would be like.” If I knew Lindy, she’d work out a good plan that she could execute that would get money in her pocket, food in her tummy, and a roof above her smart head. “What happened?” she asked, sort of teary-eyed.
“What happened?” Jonathon repeated. “Not two hours after I gave myself to the world did I meet a farmer who needed help on his farm and he had a place for me to stay. I learned all about tilling soil with tools forty years old and man, did those people have siestas! If it’s hot in Spain you lay your hoe down, grab a cerveza and a shady spot and take yourself a tipsy nap. I walked out of there two months later with all kinds of knowledge and memories and some money in my pocket.” Jonathon had a knack for telling an exciting story with a nice quiet voice exuding wise gentleness.
“That’s amazing,” I had to admit. “But I don’t know if that’s something you can be so sure about. Some people have incredible faith and all the world deals them is heartbreak. The best way of dealing with this sorrow world is to leave it. That is, alter your consciousness and see right past this endless cycle.”
“But why are you so down on this world?” Lindy asked. “I often feel there might be a perfect balance of good and evil and maybe these are just human inventions anyways and the world may just be the world. It just is. I dig what Jonathon’s saying. Accept the ‘is’.”
“Believe me, I’m not saying the evil outweighs the good,” I said. “It’s the fact that the good becomes bad and then the bad becomes good and we twirl in this cycle like a lost frantic hamster in a motorized wheel.”
“Strange way of putting it but I see your point,” Paige smirked. “But I also dig what Jonathon’s saying. Maybe opening yourself up to the world and altering your consciousness is really the same thing.”
“I don’t think I’m there yet. I can’t trust the world. It’s too big and scary,” I whispered.
Jonathon sprung up, looking all excited. “But don’t you see what’s happened? Don’t you see that you can?”
“What?” I asked.
“Every moment of your life, every tiny particular detail, every single instant has led you to this exact place, sitting here, eating salad, enjoying a sunny day in the middle of Arcata. I once had two dollars and now I’m here and what’s got me here if not everything?” he exclaimed.
Paige pursed her lips and raised her head looking up at the clear blue sky. Libby looked real serene, like wisdom had touched her. Jonathon looked wide-eyed, loving, and gentle. I touched the grass and thanked it for Jonathon Tzu, knowing that no matter what I said, he was right and I did put my trust in the powers that be because the powers that be have never failed to deliver me. And that’s why I was sitting at a picnic with three Bodhisattvas.
Jonathon smiled. “You know that great koan - what’s the sound of one hand clapping?”
“Yes, of course,” said Paige, interested.
Jonathon raised his right hand real mysteriously, smirking all the while, and then was able to flick it in such a way, with the wrist loose and flexible, that his fingers slapped his palm with enough power to create a real clear and distinct “kcclaaaap.” And he did this quite a few times.
“You’ve solved it!” I yelled, disturbing hippie sleep and contemplation around me. “I’m enlightened! Keep clapping, keep clapping!”
Lindy went into a raving hysteric laughing bout, looking so pleased and innocent, making the rest of us switch off between laughter and confusion. And Lindy just kept on going, laughing herself nearly blue as she had trouble breathing in.
Jonathon said, “I like you guys because I can tell you don’t have it all figured out. Honestly, I don’t either. I once thought there was nothing more noble than praying for the world, and perhaps there isn’t. I walked up a big old mountain in order to sit on top and be peaceful and project good vibes out to the sorrow world. At times climbing up that mountain I thought I was God. I get to the top and, as mountain-tops usually are, it was windy and nuts, gusts carrying incredible momentum. I was shocked but determined to be some saintly character all quiet on top of the world. So I sat in meditation. The wind was kicking and punching me, giving me no peace of mind. I was cold, uncomfortable and all that negative energy hidden deep within me started swelling up. I ended up standing on that mountain-top, not positive and serene, but waving my arms and screaming at God. ‘Why,’ I kept yelling. And I was thinking about all the crap that goes on in the world and all the Holocaust victims and people killed in war and people starving and just plain ignorance and crooked politicians and power struggles and depression and I just kept screaming ‘Why,’ looking for some answer in the sky but it just looked back at me, dumb and vacant like I stumped it with some brilliant question. And then it nailed me - there is no answer. And one can’t ignore these things or explain them away so easily with simplistic answers. And one certainly can’t run around on a windy mountaintop catching a cold and blaming God. One needs to embrace this world and I mean all of it. And since that day my prayers for the world have been much more meaningful and focused and I understand the Tao in a whole new way. And I’ve been much more humble, accepting that there is much I don’t know and I try to function within my capabilities, just doing the best I can. I sense that with you three.”
He pulled out a slip of paper from his beat up pockets and handed it to Lindy. She looked at it and then read it aloud. It was verse 29 of the Tao Te Ching.
“Those who would take over the earth and shape it to their will never, I notice, succeed. The earth is like a vessel so sacred that at the mere approach of the profane it is marred and when they reach out their fingers it is gone. For a time in the world some force themselves ahead and some are left behind; for a time in the world some make a great noise and some are held silent; for a time in the world some are puffed fat and some are kept hungry; for a time in the world some push aboard and some are tipped out: at no time in the world will a man who is sane over-reach himself, over-spend himself, over-rate himself.”
“It’s so easy to be proud,” Paige said sadly. And we all, in our hearts, knew it was true. And Jonathon was a beacon of light - one who had a powerful conversion experience and since then saw the perfect balance of the Tao, respecting evil and good as a part of that glorious balance, held on a pin, a perfect equilibrium. And you could see it in the way he held his head, the way he smiled, the way he softly blinked his eyes - like a butterfly’s wing, swift and gentle - and we knew this man drank from a glorious cup.
Lindy asked him, “And what’s the point when all’s said and done? Is there a reason for all this continuing on?”
“I’d like to think so,” I said. “But sadly, I think that’s all we can really say. I mean, I’m glad to be here and trying my best and just trying to love everything. But, I mean, it’s a lot of work and so much to face. And then I think, ‘if the whole point is to get rid of the ego then is the whole point of jumping in just to get out?’ And that seems so sad and unfair and I’ve yelled at God from the mountaintop too.”
“And I’ve come to accept depression as a part of my life - like a hang nail or a canker sore,” said Lindy softly.
“I just keep finding myself wanting more. Or maybe not more but just wanting different,” said Paige.
And the clouds seemed to roll over our sunny picnic.
“I think there is a purpose,” said Jonathon. “I think we often look too far or too hard. It could be the case that the purpose is right here in front of us, actualizing itself in every moment. It’s in a constant state of becoming, like big circles continuous and perfect. It could be that purpose is both more simple and more intricately complicated than you’re willing to admit to yourselves. We are here, sitting in this park, having just met each other and talking deep and abstract philosophy. Why can’t that be the purpose? Why does purpose entail more? And why do we give it a time and place? Why can’t it flow and be in a constant state of becoming? And each moment that we spend together is purpose. Do we really need more than this?”
We all sat in silence, real serene. I thought, “Yeah, sometimes we do, but I dig your thinking, your optimism and I feel that you’re some kind of guru Bikkhu coming to enlighten some heavy minds. Some sad Buddha-bummed western minds.” And me heart carried both tears of joy and sadness.
“A lot of people think all these exercises of meditation and yoga and prayer are all designed with the purpose of getting you out of this world, to some lofty consciousness where you just float and you don’t fall,” Jonathon said. “But it’s been my experience that these are all tools to bring you back into this world. People running around to their appointments and TV programs don’t even feel their legs or their hands or hear half the sounds going on around them or really feel the air. Their senses are dead to half the sensations around them. Is that what we consider to be “in this world”? My Taoist practice has made me mindful, knowing what’s going on around me and not to take me away, but to put me deep within. And so I recommend these practices to you all, my new friends.”
Lindy perked up, “I say we meditate right here, right now.”
We all agreed and reached out to grab our neighbor’s hand. It was a big fluffy circle, encompassed with genuine feelings joyous and proud. We closed our eyes and just sat there, feeling the cool breeze and hearing the cars and the swaying trees and the drunken hippies. Two minutes before these sounds didn’t even exist in our world, now they were dancing all around us. Instead of trying to be something I wasn’t - an ego-less drifting essence - I just melted into these sounds and sunk into life. I was becoming mindful. And at a certain moment you lose the conception of time and all becomes swoosh and eee and sshh and whirrr and... I felt myself in that quiet place between consciousness and sleep, like a child on a playground in the clouds with the cumulus swing and the moisture slope. Is Heaven in the clouds? I felt peace as an essence as it was generated through our magic circle and expressed in the Absolute Tao.
We meditated for no more than fifteen minutes but it felt like an eternity. Not in the sense of boredom and frustration and longing for closure, but in the sense of sweet eternal bliss like great sugar mountains and forest green vines.
One by one we returned to this world still not separated from our heightened awareness, but back to the consciousness that a hippie was ten feet away screaming at a passer-by that “Peace is Now!” as he held up a war protest sign. And I thought to myself, “Those kinds of words should be whispered.”
Now normally I wouldn’t go inviting someone over whom I’d just met, especially having made acquaintances in the plaza, but I thought it would be rude to talk face to face with Lao Tzu and not invite him over to dinner. I think even good old political Confucius would invite the hippie child over for some green tea and maybe a laid back ascended master jam session after dinner (Confucius dug music, and personal growth).
So I said, “Jonathon, how would you like to sip some tea and check out the coolest meditation space anywhere? It’s small and intimate, perfect for peace and soft lotus dances of the mind.”
“What?” he asked gently.
“Paige and I made our alcove into a meditation space,” I told him. Paige and Lindy just sat there smiling, Paige a little red in the cheeks.
“That sounds great but haven’t we meditated enough for one day?” Jonathon laughed. “We gotta take these vibes out into the world! But the alcove sounds sweet and maybe some other time. I’m actually supposed to be heading down to Frisco and I would have left by now if you three crazy Bikkhus didn’t look so inviting and calm. I’ll tell you what, though, give me your address and I’ll write you. I get up here to Arcata a few times a year and I can check out the alcove then. I really dug out time together. I think you three are gonna do something. And people will start sitting in their alcoves and store all their stuff they own that they don’t need in the living room corner or something.”
I laughed, thinking about the boxes all stuffed by the couch - all of them unnecessary.
Jonathon got up and we all followed. Paige unexpectedly gave him a violent hug saying, “Thank you.” Lindy gave him a gentle embrace saying, “Write us.” I gave him a hug too saying, “Pray for us.” And Jonathon looked at us all gentle and sad and said, “We’re all connected. Feel it. How does it feel? Does it feel anything like a flock of birds, flying in one direction, all in perfect position - aerodynamic with an incredible will and vigor? And none say a word to each other and yet they fly in perfect harmony through a seamless blue sky. Are we so different? Embrace the now and let it embrace you.”
And like a mystical sage on a mission to save the world, Jonathon Tzu disappeared from the Arcata scene, presumably in some Honda Civic or Ford Escort but maybe, maybe on the back of an eagle.
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