The Zen of Christmas

Are you beginning to sense a shift in life's tempo from frantic endeavor to quiet anticipation? Often, I've found anticipation to be more rewarding than experience. Looking forward to all the things I could do when I became "grown up" set up expectations I'm still trying to meet. (I know, Yoda ~ Do or not do. There is no try.) Zen has much to teach about losing our expectations and experiencing the moment. Christmas offers many opportunities to practice Zen. For example, whether or not it's what you "really, really wanted," there is no such thing as the "wrong present." I doubt the Christ child had much use for frankincense, myrrh or gold. We are already beginning to receive some of this season's most important gifts: longer days and the expectation that life will be renewed in all its fullness as the days grow and the nights shrink. Temperatures are only a lagging indicator.

a spirit of Christmas

Photo by J. Harrington

I don't intend to preach as much as share some lessons I hope I've learned over many Christmases of giving and receiving gifts. I've found more joy in giving a gift that brought real pleasure to the recipient than from almost anything I've ever been given. I've also failed, too often, to adequately appreciate a gift and all the giver's love and caring and hard work it represented. It isn't really the thought that counts, it's the love that triggered the thought. [Read Richard Hugo's The Triggering Town.]

If I'm not making myself clear, try reading or watching (hopefully again) "A Christmas Carol." Keep a close eye on Scrooge as he learns that having it all is only worth what you can do for others with all you have. That's something on which I believe Zen and Christianity are pretty much in agreement.

What to Count On

By Peggy Shumaker 

Not one star, not even the half moon         

       on the night you were born

Not the flash of salmon

       nor ridges on blue snow

Not the flicker of raven’s

       never-still eye

Not breath frozen in fine hairs

       beading the bull moose’s nostril

Not one hand under flannel

       warming before reaching

Not burbot at home under Tanana ice

       not burbot pulled up into failing light

Not the knife blade honed, not the leather sheath

Not raw bawling in the dog yard

       when the musher barks gee

Not the gnawed ends of wrist-thick sticks

       mounded over beaver dens

Not solar flares scouring the earth over China

Not rime crystals bearding a sleek cheek of snow

Not six minutes more of darkness each day

Not air water food words touch

Not art

Not anything we expect

Not anything we expect to keep

Not anything we expect to keep us alive

Not the center of the sea

Not the birthplace of the waves

Not the compass too close to true north to guide us

Then with no warning

       flukes of three orcas

                 rise, arc clear of sea water

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.