Who Me? A Prophet??

As If by Magic...

Last Word or First…?

Choose your poison…
or not!

Darkness Giving
Way to Light...?

Time To Say Yes

Of Science, Oatmeal
and Meaning

The Cypress in the Garden:
A Koan Revisited…

Divine Hospitality
at Work...

For the Time Being...
Some Thoughts on the Stewardship of Time

The Cypress in the Garden:
A Koan Revisited…

By Whitney Wherrett Roberson

SAW has begun a new series of workshops -- more like mini-retreats really -- the first of which happened a few weeks ago, in mid-April.  Entitled “Silicon Valley, Unplugged,” the four-hour “mini-retreat” was co-sponsored by the Redwood Instituted of Portola Valley which had arranged for a local bookstore to have a small display of appropriate titles available for sale.  (Our own resource guide was on the table as well, and doing a brisk business!)  Of course, I couldn’t resist browsing and picked up a copy of Lewis Richmond’s Work as a Spiritual Practice: A Practical Buddhist Approach to Inner Growth and Satisfaction on the Job.  It’s been our experience at Spirituality at Work that conversations which draw upon and include the wisdom of many spiritual traditions are likely to be especially enriching.  So I was pleased to find a resource from the Buddhist perspective which might become the focus for a series of conversations. I haven’t been disappointed; in fact, we’ll be using it as a “dialogue partner” for our May “agendas.” I had read no further than the introduction when I came across a gem which I’ve been mulling ever since.

Just as the Christian tradition has its own sorts of teaching devices (I’m thinking, for example, of Jesus’ parables or his penetrating one-liners,) one school of Buddhism makes special use of the “koan,” a kind of story which usually revolves around a puzzling question or paradox.  The pondering of koans is a form of spiritual practice intended to push the ponderer beyond ordinary reliance on reason into a deeper, intuitive grasp of reality  -- and of Reality.  Lewis shares one such koan: the story of a monk who approaches his teacher with the question, “What is the Buddha?”  To which the master replies,  “The cypress tree in the garden.” What could be more ordinary, Lewis continues, than the cypress tree which the monk passes each day as he meditates?  Is it this everyday, ordinary thing which is to be for him the embodiment of enlightenment?  But then that’s exactly the point: it is the everyday thing, the paradox of everyday life, which becomes the magic window, as it were, into What Is.  

So I began to wonder, with Richmond, what it would be like if I were to look at my own work, my own life, as on ongoing “koan.”  Just about then, in one of those lovely synchronicities that happen from time to time – by the hand of Divine Mystery, I’m convinced -- I recalled a recent conversation with my friend Martin Rutte who had shared with me an epiphany of his own. I don’t remember exactly the context of Martin’s remark or the meaning he ascribed to his insight; I wasn’t even quite sure how he had phrased it until I checked back with him, but I did remember the meaning I took from our conversation, for it penetrated me deeply.  What had come to him was this: “Without story, there is only presence.”  My immediate internal response was, “But I like ‘story;’ it is the telling of my own story that gives my life meaning….” Except that -- I began to realize as I reflected -- the telling of “my story” can also get in the way of my seeing – simply -- what Is, of my being present to this Is-ness; for my own “story” becomes an interpretive lens which can get in the way of my seeing “the cypress in the garden.”  From time to time, for example -- especially when I have strong, or anxious, feelings about what’s ahead -- I find myself “writing scripts” in my head (a throwback, no doubt, to the days when I wrote for TV.) I anticipate what’s going to happen; I tell my “story” all right, but in doing so, I may also help to create the very situation that I fear.

But what if I traded this “story” for simple presence? What if, in my work, I simply opened myself to the gift of every moment, expecting to find Buddha -- or Christ or Allah or Brahma: Divine Mystery -- in every person and event and task.  Is it possible, as Lewis suggests in his book, that even the workplace can become a spiritual place? I’ll be honest; I’m not sure I know how to practice this sort of presence -- how to let go of “story.”  But I’ve just bought a tiny cypress bonsai for my desk; stay tuned...