ApresZen

One Hundred-foot Poles
St. Helena, CA

The meditation last evening developed into the theme of faith and faithlessness for me. I was surprised that this theme emerged, but surprise or not, it is what occurred. John introduced this koan:

Take a step from a one hundred foot pole, and show your whole body in every direction.

As I meditated on this koan, I found myself reluctant to step off the top of that pole I had created for myself. I recalled a scene from the Indiana Jones film about the Holy Grail. Where Indie had to step off a ledge into the abyss. He raised his leg stiffly - like a goose-stepping soldier - and leaned forward. There was an unseen stone bridge there ready to catch his fall. I saw myself in this same posture, but only frozen and unable to lean forward. The overused phrase "leap of faith" came to mind.

And in that moment I realized that I was completely without faith. I did not believe that there would be anything or anyone to catch my fall. As this moment of faithlessness became clearer, I found myself becoming sad. I thought of the faithful boy I was as a child. "Ardent" is the word that comes to mind. (I just looked up "ardent". It comes from the Latin, ardor, ardere - meaning "to burn". I need to spend some time with this word, but not here.)

So, I was thinking about the "self" as it was when it was a young boy. Was that self someone who would have eagerly stepped off the top of that pole? I daresay he was. God, the angels - something or someone - would have caught him. Sitting there, the obvious came to mind - the me who was in the moment was not the same me that was back there well in the past. And that young boy is as unknowable now as it was unknown then. But the sadness was there. It was relentless. Sitting there without faith, I was left with the second part of the koan - ... show your whole body in every direction.

What occurred next was a bit astonishing. My face began to twitch as it did during last September's "Ordeal". The right side of my face, just as it did then. But the truly astonishing part was that in this case I just let to happen. In that moment the spasms were my body showing itself in every direction.

Earlier in the meditation, John said something that turned out to be one of those valuable gold nuggets I come upon from time to time - the ones I put in my little travel pouch because I am sure to need the currency to pay some ferryman's toll along the way. He said: Meditation is an opportunity to experiment with being someone other than you usually are.

So, when my face began to contort, I just let it be. My face was just my face right then. As I let go of how "I usually am", as I let go of the fool's errand of trying to look just so, I looked just so. The spasms slowly dissipated and then stopped, and for just a moment, I was at peace.

There I was still on top of the pole, but now I felt perched the way a bird sits before taking flight. I was not longer clinging to the pole. I was resting.

Later in the talk that followed the meditation, John spoke about how we are always stepping off that pole. The pole I was on a moment ago is gone. I stepped off of it into this moment. He spoke of this stepping off as an invitation in a way. He said: The worst thing that life can do is to ask you to be who you want to be. And I thought, of course, this is the best thing the world might do as well.

The morning after:
This morning I looked up John's koan and could not find it the way he presented it. In one place I found it phrased this way: This moment doesn't care that we stepped of a one hundred foot pole yesterday. Another phrased it as a question: How do you step from the top of a one hundred foot pole?
I prefer John's koan because it also invited me to experiment with being different, with showing my body in every direction.