In the Buddha’s first sermon after attaining complete and total enlightenment, he presented the four noble truths. These are often translated as affirming the existence of suffering, the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering and the eightfold path which leads to the end of suffering. There is a considerable focus in contemporary Western Zen communities on the second and third of these. Put simply, this is often interpreted to mean that the cause of all of the suffering in this world is craving and desire and that to end the suffering we must end the craving. In this context aversion, or the desire to not be in contact with something, is the same and also must be ended.

The practical question then becomes how to do this? How to let go of desires, aversions and attachments. This is expressed in the second bodhisattva vow, often translated as: “desires or delusions are endless and inexhaustible, I vow to end them, or cut them off or uproot them.” The language associated with this activity is often strong and sometimes violent.

The need for vigor and resoluteness of purpose, for persistent and hard effort in this endeavor is not only understandable but necessary when sitting with the endless stream of thoughts, emotions, sensations and ego-centric fantasies that populate not only most people’s day to day activities but much of the time spent sitting on a cushion or bench or chair in zazen. However, from one perspective all of these delusions and dreams are actually very much us. From a biological-physical psychological perspective without the forces of attraction and repulsion we would not exist to practice at all. They are as much our “true nature” as everything else. When a person awakens from the “dream within a dream”, it is all here. Which is the real stuff and which is the false or unreal stuff? To cut off or uproot one’s desires, in a certain way, sounds like doing a terrible violence to oneself. There is the risk that in sitting with and acting from this perspective and with this language rather than a language of cultivating an open, grounded and awake self, one will actually undermine that which is within us. That which is us. In other words, in trying to let go, a person will not only hold tighter but will reinforce that egocentric, small image of him or herself.

Consider the story of Hui-neng, and head monk Shen-hsiu. The Fifth Patriarch posed a challenge to his monks asking them to write a poem expressing their understanding of the Dharma. Shen-hsui described the mind as a bright mirror which one endlessly polishes to keep clear from any dust (ie delusions and defilements). Hui-neng said there was no mirror/mind and no place for the dust to alight. His expression of an understanding of sunyata or the emptiness of everything rather than being caught up in the duality of defilement and purity or delusion and enlightenment was rewarded by the Fifth Patriarch with the robe and bowl recognizing him as his successor.

And yet, even though, as Hui-neng said “there is no mirror, where is the dust to land”, it is equally true that Zen practitioners are constantly dusting the mirror as they bring their attention back again and again to their practice. It is just as much folly to say that enough dusting will eventually make a clean mirror (ie. becoming enlightened) as to say that since there is no mirror and no dust, there is no use in dusting.

In “In Blackwater Woods” Mary Oliver offers three bits of advice that point to a way letting go of desires and attachments in a way and with a language that is not violent and divisive but healing and opening. Her first is “to love what is mortal”.

The essence of mortality is death. What is mortal is transient, impermanent. What is here now will not be here tomorrow. It will change. It is always, constantly changing. Before going any further, one must truly acknowledge this fact of existence, of my and your and all of our existence. Although, this would seem obvious to anyone who is lived through the turning of even one season, who has seen a child grow, or a parent die, almost all of us at some time  think and act in ways that deny a complete acceptance of this fact.

A person may in one moment recite the five remembrances:

While in this body, while of this body:
I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.
I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.
I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.
All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is not way to escape being separated from them.
My actions are my only true belongings.

Then, like the monk questioning Ta Lung, may say I know that the body rots away but I still want to know, I really want to know: “what is the hard, fast body of reality, the indestructible dharma body”. This is a very deep poignant heart-felt question, a yearning to know, to have that core question answered or perhaps even more to have a deep fear of mortality quieted.

And Ta Lung responded: “Mountain flowers cover the hillside like brocade,
the valley streams are blue as inidgo”  

or perhaps (without the similes)

“Mount Colden’s tiny white flowers everywhere,
A stream bounds over rocks toward the valley.”

These are images of transience. In some ways they seem to be the opposite of something hard and indestructible. There is a beauty in this poetry but it is not just (merely) beautiful words and images. This is a subtle and compassionate answer to the monk and to all of us. Impermanence, change, is the indestructible ground, is the constant. It is just (exactly) that. Don’t go looking elsewhere. Everything is mortal: our lover, our child, our parent, our community of friends, the animals, plants, insects, protozoans all around us, the rocks and oceans, the earth, the sun, the universe. And, there is no need to fight against or fear that reality.

Mary Oliver does not say to examine this mortality with dispassionate or philosophic wisdom. She says love. She uses the word mortal, a word that evokes the image of the living flesh and blood that is us; the living flesh and blood that completely depends on attraction and aversion to exist. Love does not preclude holding something or someone with dispassionate wisdom. Indeed, one important aspect of love is being able to be with, to see and hear someone in a way that is not clouded by one’s own needs and projections. To see who they really are, as they are, not as we imagine them to be or want them to be. This is something that can come from cultivating a discerning mind and can be nurtured by a practice such as shikantaza.

But love has other important aspects also. Love has empathy, caring, and affection. Love has attraction and desire. The desire is not for self-gratification whether sexual or otherwise. It is a desire for the well being of the other. A willingness to put their needs as equal to one’s own. Equally important is to do this without negating or denying one’s own self and one’s own agency. There is an aspect of love that can be seen as two separate individuals engaging with one another. But that perspective is incomplete. One important aspect of love is that it is in relation to someone or something else. It is not simply an emotion that one person just feels about another. There is an essential aspect of love that is porous and interconnected. It is created by both people. In this sense they are not separate. They are one. To talk about two people who have created this type of love as both two individuals and as one, can seem paradoxical if understood in a conceptual or more literal way. But as it is experienced through the life practice of loving what is mortal, that paradox can be understand as a false paradox.

So to love what is mortal is to be with, to be connected to and attracted to something that is changing; to something that will not provide for you a permanent, unshakable shelter or safety or self-validation. I do not think that these desires and attractions are something to be cut off or gotten rid of. I think Mary Oliver’s words are suggesting a way that a person can actually be connected or attached to someone or something else and at the same time not be attached. However this non-attachment is different than is suggested by “uprooting or cutting of attachments and desires”.

I do not think there is a prescription or menu for how to do this. There is no manual. It is something that each individual can only discover for him or herself. Not only that, but whatever a person discovers at one time will be different in the next moment and will have to be discovered and created again. There are however, many potentially very helpful practices and many wonderful people (and animals and trees and other beings) who can help. One, as mentioned above is shikantaza. A similar practice is to sit with, to hold with open hand, the various emotions, fears and desires that arise in day to day life. Rather than cut them off, invite them in when they have crowded into the sanctuary of your mind, somewhat like Milarepa and the demons who went wild in his cave. Be curious about how they feel, where they came from, what you are inclined to do when you experience them. Open your arms to them. But remember that they do not fully define “you”. Also remember that they arise in and from relationship. They do not belong solely to you. What do they also tell you about this world, about the one you love?

Mary Oliver’s second piece of advice is “to hold it against your bones, knowing your own life depends on it”. In other words to completely commit to something that will inevitably change and die. On one hand, this could easily be interpreted as describing a very strong attachment to something, perhaps a loved one, a child, a clan or tribe or nation, a cause. But she says this in the context of the word love: a love that is not self centered but mutually centered and created. In other words, it is based on ever-changing relationship. It is not one subject loving and holding on to another, an object. It is two or more beings in relationship to each other. In philosophical terms this can be seen from the perspective of dependent origination. I, a person, do not come into being as an independent being, exist for a while and then end existence/die. Rather I, as an individual person, come into being only as a result of and only in relation to all the rest of existence. I remain part of and dependent on the rest of existence for my existence. When conditions change, “I” will change.

But again, the power of Mary Oliver’s words is that it takes practice from the primarily conceptual or philosophical to the immediate and personal, the only place were one can really practice. This second piece of advice encourages a complete and whole hearted commitment. To put one’s entire self on the line. One’s own life, literally and figuratively depends on everything else. We are encouraged to truly acknowledge this. Even though we know it is our death; we also know it is our life. It is not advice to withdraw and to just observe and be aware of the impermanent nature of existence, but to be completely engaged in that world. Doing this is not only a way to experience in a full, direct, intuitive way, the emptiness and connection or interdependence of everything but to simply live a much fuller life, to be fully human.

We are constantly presented with opportunities to practice this commitment without attachment. One way is not to avoid uncomfortable emotions by dismissing them as delusions but to embrace them and examine them, to more fully see what is. Similar to this is not to dismiss or reify (turn into a caricature) a person with whom we disagree. By engaging with him or her in an open way, one can learn about that person, get a better understanding of them and perhaps avoid falling into unhealthy habit patterns of thinking and acting. This is equally true of the way one relates to something or someone that (s)he is attracted to.

This also has important implications for moral issues. Rather than lead to an ethics that is so relativistic that it becomes essentially no ethics or to believe that one is above or beyond ethics, one fully commits to moral thoughts, words and actions. There is a willingness to take a stand. To say I do not believe this is a good thing to do or not do. To say ‘I will take a direct action and I will do this because I believe it to be good.’ But at the same time, realizing that you may not, in fact probably can not know for sure, that what you may or may not do is actually going to be helpful and healthy, ie to be ‘good’.

A core aspect of practicing with loving commitment to what is mortal, is the desire to do what is beneficial, helpful, and healthy for everything. What ‘In Blackwater Woods” tells us is that whatever we do we must hold it tight to our bones because our life and everyone’s life depends on it. Part of that commitment is a commitment to continually strive to understand what is beneficial, and especially to understand oneself and the ways one’s own predispositions, fears and
desires distort their understanding of the world. To commit to being open to change. To be willing to acknowledge not only what one doesn’t know but that mistakes that have been made. Otherwise, one may fall into the death either of a purely conceptual world or a blind world of wanton thoughts, speech and action.

Her final piece of advice is “when the time comes to let go, to let go”. Taken alone this could be interpreted as a simple statement to not be attached and to let go of all attachments, to just cut them off. For example, when your child has died, you go on, because after all everyone’s child dies at some point. But this advice is not to be taken alone. It is in the context of a life informed by love and commitment; commitment not just to an idea or cause or practice but commitment to all the inhabitants of this insane world. If one is capable of loving what is mortal and holding it to your bone because your life depends on it in this way, (ie not centered on your self), then letting go when it is time to let go will be completely natural. That does not mean that it will be without pain and grief, but it will be free and natural.

The crux of practice, for almost everyone to some degree, is how to live in this world when one doesn’t feel that one is fully loving or even capable of loving in this way. On the one hand, a person may be so fearful of the idea of letting go, or dying, that (s)he never fully engages. (S)he let’s go before even fully starting and so is not able to hold what (s)he loves close to the bone. On the other hand, one might feel attached in such a way that (s)he feels an ending of is a letting go that is harmful or destructive to either themself or the other or both and so is unable to let go at all.

These and similar fears arise from that narrow ego-centric view of oneself. We have been assured by the Buddha and many others over millennia that it is possible to experience a self that is not limited in this way and not subject to these fears. A state beyond birth and death. A dropping away of body and mind that is affirming. An experience of knowing, of prajna, that gives you this assurance in a deep intuitive way. The conceptual alone will not suffice. Some one else’s words or experience may give encouragement but will not suffice, even the words of Buddha or Jesus Christ. And so the practice continues, a practice that is always discovering the practice and a practice that is expressing love now.

Just: “love what is mortal
hold it close to your bones as though your life depends on it
and when the time comes to let it go, let it go”.