10 May 2006
One Hundred-foot Poles Revisited
St. Helena, CA
Take a step from a one hundred foot pole, and show your whole body in every direction.
The value of the “One Hundred-foot Pole” koan for me right now is that it permits the possibility for difference, for change, to occur in my life. This koan speaks to the little deaths that happen with each steep I take. How each “me” in the moment dies with every step. It also speaks to how this “me” – the one who has stepped off the pole, but has not yet tumbled into the abyss of lapsed time yet – can choose to be different (or not).
The koan also uncovers another delusion I hold – the one of loss. Why do I have such an urge to hold on to that me that is about to fall into the oblivion of the past? Why in that moment do I feel I will lose everything? Why do I feel that I will lose anything? What is (was) so special about that me tumbling down into the abyss?
These questions lead me back to this idea of special ness. In that act of stepping off the pole there is also the suggestions that I show myself in every direction. If I were to do that, then I suspect that I would know something about freedom.
Have there been moments when I have done both – stepped off the pole and showed my whole body? This me writing this entry says yes. My work involving ‘The Ordeal” were such One Hundred-foot moments.
What I remember most about that time of reexperiencing the trauma was how unspecial, how ordinary, I felt. When those memories of the abuse reemerged, I was painfully aware that I was merely one of many such boys. At the same time I found myself keenly aware of how much of myself was exposed, how much of my whole body I was showing in every direction.
So, I was not special. Yet, almost paradoxically, I was deeply aware of my uniqueness. And I was aware of how profoundly freeing it is to let go of the delusion of special ness that the pole somehow sustains for me.
This word, special, comes to us from the Latin word, species, meaning “individual” or “particular”. And delving a bit deeper I learned that species means “in kind”. Taking another step off the pole, I found that kind comes to us from the Old English, cynd, which means “kin”.
Digging in this particular word garden has been fruitful today. From here I see that I am most special when I am most like others, most like my kind. And in a mysterious way, I am also most myself when I am in kind, when I am most like my kin. And my kin are all those who also step off one hundred-foot poles. That is what my species, my kin, does.
For some reason it feels notable that “kind” entered into this conversation. Maybe that is what this whole entry is really about. Maybe this has been a meditation on kindness all along. When I do grasp my own uniqueness by letting go of my special ness, then I can really begin to see others “of my kind” struggling to do the same. And when I am in touch with this uniqueness I find that I can be kind because I am aware that each of us is “of us”.
Being kind is a loving act that expresses the underlying truth embedded in all our narratives – that lovingkindness is all around us. All we need do is choose to see ourselves falling, and catching each other and being caught, all in a marvelous loving freefall we call life.