Tuning In
I went searching for a Thich Nhat Hanh book on my bookshelf this weekend.
He just passed away. I have been somber since I read the news—especially coming so soon after Archbishop Demond Tutu.
I have scoured Thay's work on mindfulness and non-violence for 20 years—even listening to him on tape—seeking the peace that he lived.
This time, the first book of his I found on my shelf was No Death, No Fear.
I didn’t remember that one. I was actually looking for Peace Is Every Step. But the book caught my eye, so I grabbed it. And as I opened it, I noticed right away that it wasn’t empty. Stuck inside was a plastic sleeve.
And inside the plastic sleeve were two index cards with my handwriting. The one on top was labeled “My Life in 2004.”
Ahhh, I thought; this is going to be interesting.
On the card with that declarative title, I had written 6 precepts:
· I do yoga at least 3x per week.
· I eat fewer carbs and have lost 20 pounds.
· I write daily.
· I go to at least two Al-Anon meetings per week and work the program daily.
· I play for at least ½ hour, unstructured, with Duncan each day.
· I read my goals and affirmations 2x per day.
Ha! I am pretty sure the 20 pounds thing didn’t happen.
And I had to make a rule to be sure I had unstructured play time with my son?
I suppose it all makes sense. At that time, I was separated from my ex, navigating him getting sober and me healing from codependency. And these index cards were inside a book about death because my mother was in a 10-year battle with cancer. And it was apparent at year 7 who was winning.
It’s eye-opening to come across something you wrote 18 years prior, and to note that many themes haven’t changed. I'm still learning how to make time for writing and yoga. Still practicing living one day at a time. Still trying to lose 20 pounds.
That said, a My Life in 2022 card would look a little different. My son is now 24. These days, I have to nag him to find unstructured time to play with me.
As I mourn the loss of Thich Nhat Hanh and Archbishop Tutu from the planet, I find myself thinking, “Who is coming down the pike to replace masters like them?”
Not that anyone can be replaced. But it feels right now as if we don’t have enough mindfulness and non-violent thinking to be able to afford to lose souls like these.
There is a section at the beginning of Thay’s book called No Coming, No Going. In it, he writes, “For many of us, our greatest pain is caused by our notions of coming and going. We think that the person we loved came to us from somewhere and has now gone away somewhere. But our true nature is the nature of no coming, no going. We have not come from anywhere, we shall not go anywhere.”
Yet I feel like they were here, and now they are gone.
But he says in the spirit of Buddha, imagine a room without a television or radio. We may think that TV and radio programs don’t exist in that room. But air is full of signals—waves are filling that space. We need only the conditions to be right—to have a radio or television set (or phone or laptop)—and forms, colors, and sounds will appear.
“It would have been wrong to say that signals do not exist because we did not have a radio or television to receive and manifest them….just because we do not perceive something, it is not correct to say it does not exist. It is only our notion of being and non-being that makes us confused.”
I believe this. I can't always live it, but I believe it.
And now that Thay is in the non-being, I can imagine his spiritual essence floating through the airwaves, just waiting for a connection. He might be easier to reach than my mom or dad, 14 and 8 years after their passings. Thich Nhat Hanh spent so much time in this field of non-being that he just seems more plugged in. More accessible.
But there are other times I can feel my mother or father with me. When I am tuned in, when I have my own radio turned on mindfully, I can sense them. They are often very still, and quiet—they may show up in a smell, an image, or a bird flittering by a window.
But other times, they come in a bit more boisterous. Memories of them make me laugh. Those times, they are here to play with me. Just for an unstructured moment, or maybe a half hour. Here or there.