Natural Lessons

by Stuart Goldman

I was asked to write an article about my job and how it might relate to right livelihood. Like so many things, it became something other than what I intended and morphed into an article on right effort instead.

Up until mid-March I worked as a restoration ecology technician for The Nature Conservancy in Illinois. For the most part this job involved the clearing of native and non-native woody brush and trees from ecosystems that did not historically have these types of vegetation present. Formerly these areas were prairies and other types of ecosystems that had only sparsely spaced trees and understory shrubs. This work required using chainsaws. It is two incidents involving chainsaws that brought home to me how ordinary situations can offer lessons for practice both in and out of the zendo.

Prior experience with chainsaws had encouraged me to use and maintain them in certain ways. This resulted in my not paying attention to the fact that while experience is a great teacher, it can blind a person into thinking that a little bit of experience means that this one way is the only way to do something.

As an example, several times over the summer, I had not securely tightened down the plastic caps to the gas and oil reservoirs on the chainsaws. While the saws were being used the caps would loosen and eventually come off, thus spilling gas and oil onto the very areas I was working to restore. Not only was this not helpful to the soil and plants, it was also wasting a lot of fuel. As a direct response to this I began tightening down the caps as hard as I could with a screwdriver. In attempting to solve one problem though, I created another. These plastic caps have a small slot on top for the screwdriver to engage. Repeatedly over-tightening and loosening the caps resulted in the screwdriver scraping away the sides of the slots, making them wider over time. Eventually, one slot became so wide the tool no longer fit, making it impossible to remove the cap and refill the saw. This meant losing work time, taking the saw into a dealer for repair, and paying for a new cap. I learned a simple and valuable lesson with this incident. Take the middle way, even when using a chainsaw. Too much can be as counterproductive as too little. Not too loose—but not too tight.

The second incident had potential for disastrous consequences. I was working alone in the field with a chainsaw, which violated unwritten safety rules. Unfortunately, admonitions like that often go in one ear and out the other. But I had not planned to cut down any trees. I was simply going to cut up a mature cottonwood that had already been cut down. It was a tripping hazard blocking a path that I was frequently using. This was a good-sized tree, almost two feet in diameter where I would be doing the majority of the cutting. Cutting up downed trees is not as easy as it sounds. The saw can get bound up in the trunk halfway through, slipping while cutting could result in amputating a foot, or the trunk could roll onto you after it is cut.
I took my jacket off before I began cutting, and put it where I knew I would be able to find it, on the end of the tree that I was cutting up, closest to the stump. I started cutting using a technique that usually guarantees that the saw will not get bound. I made all of my cuts, and the saw did not get stuck—but a large part of the trunk rolled. Not onto me but onto my jacket. I was utterly incredulous. How did I do something so unthinking? I vigorously tugged on my jacket but it would not budge. In addition to wanting my jacket back, I had the added concern that my boss and my boss’ boss would be arriving at the site soon. Not only would it be apparent that I was running the chainsaw with no one else on site, it would also be extremely embarrassing given the problem I had created.

I realized I would have to power up the saw again which I did not want to do, since it had already used considerable gas and wear on the chain to cut up this tree. But I did not see that I had a choice. So I started cutting again taking care not to bind up the saw. Not careful enough, though. The cut I was making closed up on the bar of the saw. Of course, this was the one day that I only had one saw with me. I was frantic. I now had two things trapped by this acquisitive tree and I was desperate to get them out.

The only thing I could do to partially open the cut on the tree wide enough to free the saw was to push or pull this log that weighed many more times than me. I was working with all my effort to move the trunk getting more and more frantic and exhausted. It hit me during this struggle that this is how I should be approaching my practice. I was completely focused on the task at hand, doing anything I could to free what seemed hopelessly stuck.

I pushed on the log from both sides in the slippery, muddy ground. It would not move, even with a nearby stump as a block for leverage. Utterly exhausted, I sank to the ground next to my jacket. Without thinking about it or expecting anything, I tugged gently on it, and it slipped easily from beneath the tree. The jacket was never stuck at all. For whatever reason, violently pulling on it did not work. All it needed was a different approach.

The saw, however, really was stuck. A different approach would also be needed to free it. I moved to the other side of the trunk and began pushing from that side. At last there was some movement, but not enough to pull the saw out. Then it occurred to me that from that side I should be pulling the log towards me to open up the cut, not pushing it away. I pulled and pulled and could not believe that the log was actually moving. With one hand still pulling, I reached over and pulled the saw towards me. It moved, but still not enough. Then the revelation...I should be pushing the saw away from me. And out the saw came.

Later, I thought about what had happened. I thought of the many assumptions I had made. The distractions I had let get in the way of my work. The work in the field, the work on the mat. Only after becoming exhausted and frustrated with what I thought was the only way of working was I able to open to working in a different way.

I wonder how long it will be until it is time to learn something from a chainsaw again. I can hardly wait.

Monkey Mind

by Barth and Kristin Wright

Introduction

In way of introduction it seems necessary to present our situation and us. My wife, Kristin, and I had our first few visits to the Chicago Zen Center, accompanied by 3 sessions of dokusan, in August and early September of 1999. We shortly thereafter left for the Iwokrama Rainforest Reserve in Guyana, South America to begin 13 months of research on primates for our dissertations. We are both currently in graduate school, she at Northwestern Medical school, and I at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I am now working at Northwestern as well, which means no long commutes to the Center. We have luckily received a number of taped teishos from Sevan Sensei, and have had the opportunity to contact him every couple of months via snail and e-mail. We have recently become members of the Center. At first blush this article might appear to be a discussion of the unique struggle which we have had to undertake in order to hold fast to our pledge to follow the Zen path and practice the Buddha’s and the Patriarch’s teachings. In actuality, our experience here has shown us how every day one can devise reasons for not sitting, for not practicing, for not holding fast to inquiry into this “Great Matter”, no matter the setting.

The Setting

We basically live in the rainforest. We are sheltered from rain in two ways. Our “bedroom” is in a raised wooden platform, with a thatch roof, where our hammocks (a.k.a. beds) are slung. By hammock, I’m not talking about dad’s net number in the back yard. The one that looks like a fishing net with sticks stuck in the end. These have no sticks and are beautifully woven. If you’re lucky you have gotten your hands on one made by Arawak, Macushi, or Wapashana peoples. They are surrounded by a box net that has sleeves on the end to permit the passage of the hammock ropes. The “kitchen” is under a wooden frame, which is draped by tarpaulins (or “pole-ins” in Creolese). The “lab” is built the same as the “kitchen”. Our bathroom is divided in two: a latrine, which becomes terrifyingly full of water during the wet season and our “shower”, which is behind a “pole-in” on wooden stakes. Water for bathing, cooking, and drinking is supplied from a spring. Thus, one of our primary morning activities is hauling water (although we are heartily sorry for the pigs, our deepest thanks to Canada for sending pickled pig parts to Guyana in large plastic buckets. The buckets, luckily not the meat, keep our camp operational.)

Studying Monkeys

Our days are primarily spent trodding 25+ km of trails which we had cut in the forest around camp. We could have had a nearly infinite number cut if we wished, due to the shocking vastness of Guyana’s rainforest. It is wonderfully intact, 80% of the country is forested, and not as threatened as Brazil’s forests due to its lower productivity. When monkeys are found we collect data on feeding and positional behavior, I on the former, and Kristin on the latter. The pristine nature of the forest provides the opportunity to see a vast array of animals as well. These include jaguar, ocelot, giant river otters, macaws, toucans, tapir, peccaries, and our mammals of choice, weeper capuchins, red howling monkeys, black spider monkeys, and white-faced sakis. It has also provided us the opportunity to be visited in camp by more than 40 poisonous snakes!

“The Rest of the Story”

You may be saying, “This is all well and good, but this isn’t a natural history article.”… So, for the rest of the story…

The intensity of this situation, and the sheer volume of change, has provided ample opportunity to test our faith, doubt, and determination. It has proven a testing ground, of sorts, to evaluate the level of compulsion we have to follow the Zen path. It has also produced some amazing internal dialogue (talk about “monkey mind”!) which we have had to beat back with these three ingredients. But it has also revealed, by comparison, how all new situations, and old for that matter, provide an ample number of obstacles to practice. The development, through our various births until practice, of our ego produces these dialogues. It is always a matter of facing the “reality” created by our ego and overcoming it.

A Dialogue in the Forest

The following, though written in one voice, is a conglomerate of dialogues which both Kristin and I have faced for the past 10 months:

5:15am:
“Man, cold last night. Gotta get up and move. That kind of cold really stiffens me up, not to mention having this banana back from sleeping in a hammock. Tough on posture.”

“Oh, quit it! Just sit!”

6:45am (after not sitting):
“There are the monkeys, weeper capuchins this time”. Oh man, they’re going to run us ragged today. I’m gonna need some rest tonight. And what is with this heat! Wow, they aren’t kidding when they say it’s not the heat it’s the humidity! I’ve never sweated like this!”

“Wait, you weren’t thinking any of this a minute ago. You were just following monkeys. Shut up this useless banter and just sit!”

“Just sit you say! Well, let’s throw in the fact that Kristin has a fever and diarrhea, probably amoebic dysentery! We’ve been so stressed about not finding monkeys lately, that we haven’t had a civil word in days! Every night there is a new “deadly” snake in camp! We have no good place to sit! If we sit out of a net, bugs molest us! Our cook is having one of her grumpy weeks and refuses to keep things sanitary! The equipment for testing fruit is on the fritz and must be sent to Hong Kong, and what about…”

“Hold on! Let’s turn to Zen a second… What is creating all this? Your attachment to you! Your amazingly powerful drive for comfort in all circumstances. But what brought you to the Center in the first place?”

“Well, my karma.”

“Yeah, O.K., but what specifically? Feeling like this! It’s not the rainforest, it’s you! Your attachment to you! No you, none of this crap. How to get rid of you, you ask… sit! Sit! SIT!”

For the first 6 months, the unitalicized voice won most of the time, but the italicized voice was doggedly persistent and forced us to set aside time to make changes. We lowered our hammocks so we could sit in a net (sounds strange, but it is just like sitting in a chair [not our preferred posture] if it is low enough for your feet to touch the ground and you sit sideways). It also made us set aside time to listen to the taped teishos, and of greatest importance, it has us sitting consistently.

Deeper Understanding

We’ve come to realize that this italicized voice is in all of us, although it is not, at its core, really a voice at all, but a mental manifestation of the cycle of faith-driving doubt-driving determination-driving faith…our hidden Buddha-nature. Luckily, this “voice” produced the inner discord or tension which pushed us in this lifetime to the Zen Center. It also pushes us (the entire Sangha) to work past daily problems, it pushes us to be kind, it pushes us in sesshin to stay on the mat, and it pushes us to make the leap to enlightenment.
At this point in my practice, and Kristin’s practice, it is only seen as a voice, that little cartoon angel that sits on one shoulder, arguing against the cartoon devil. But given cultivation of this voice through further training, it will become a profound thunderous silence, where all voices become no voice, words have no meaning, and the Rainforest is just the rainforest.