The Economics of Male Grief

It's been a bit quiet over here lately. I've been writing about topics that didn't naturally fit here, and also doing a lot of behind the scenes work at zen center. I also planted a flat of seeds, and hope that it warms up enough in the next few weeks to get the garden going. Lots of waiting and needing to be patient.

I have a new post over at Life as a Human webzine. It focuses on male grief and economics. Here's a short selection from it.

"Although it’s probably the case that socialization at school and other places put it into my head that crying isn’t okay for men, the day that solidified it for me was my grandfather’s funeral.

I was 13 years old. As one of the pallbearers, I stood at the end of the line, watching the casket coming out of the hearse. Suddenly, I felt weak in my legs and turned away, just at the time when I should have been reaching up. My uncle screamed something nasty at me, jolting me back into place, to do my “job.” I think I didn’t forgive him for years for that.

Later that day, my grandmother came around and told all of us “Don’t cry. You’re grandfather wouldn’t want you to cry.” She was trying to support us, but this is often how grandma’s support has been – kind of off. Anyway, her words that day, as well as my uncle’s, stuck with me, leading the charge of all the other comments and views I’d heard saying that men don’t cry, that we best be “tough,” no matter what."

Zen Desire

The world before my eyes is wan and wasted, just like me.
The earth is decrepit, the sky stormy, all the grass withered.
No spring breeze even at this late date,
Just winter clouds swallowing up my tiny reed hut.

Zen Master Ikkyu, 1394-1481

I have been thinking this morning about delay. Specifically, how delay is felt, experienced, and the desire behind it. When things don't come to us when we want them to, or expected them to, we call it a delay. We say we are in waiting, putting a future focus on what's happening now. And often, in the process, stepping out of the now all together.

Something was desired to occur at a certain time. It didn't. Now what?

When faced with that now what, we tend to experience a taking over by desire. Instead of using our desire energy to move through life, we become owned by it. Controlled by it.

Although it may not have been the case, in Ikkyu's poem, I sense a bit of longing for spring. Both for the literal spring and, also, the spring of waking up to some part of his life he continues to miss.

When desire owns us, everything seems to be colored by lack.

When desire is a tool used by us, there's no lack of abundance.

Being in waiting for something can live in either of those fields. You can wait for spring without being controlled by it.

But that's easier said than done. Those winter clouds too often feel ominous to me. Even when there's no storm in sight.

May this be the winter of burning through the hut's flimsy walls.

A Zen of Desire

The world before my eyes is wan and wasted, just like me.
The earth is decrepit, the sky stormy, all the grass withered.
No spring breeze even at this late date,
Just winter clouds swallowing up my tiny reed hut.

Zen Master Ikkyu, 1394-1481

I have been thinking this morning about delay. Specifically, how delay is felt, experienced, and the desire behind it. When things don't come to us when we want them to, or expected them to, we call it a delay. We say we are in waiting, putting labels on this particular bracket of experience.

But what is it, really? How is it that yesterday was "on-time," but today is "a delay"?

Nothing changed. And everything changed. But regardless, the shift from on-time to delay is all about the quality of desire. Something was desired to occur at a certain time. It didn't. And now the quality of desire has shifted.

Although it may not have been the case, in Ikkyu's poem, I sense a bit of longing for spring. Both the literal spring and, also, the spring of waking up to some part of his life he continues to miss. When winter was full on, it probably seemed pointless to desire spring. Maybe there was a slow burning wanting, the kind that keeps people warm enough, and keeps us returning to meditation, self-reflection, and studying of sacred texts. But when the winds are so cold that they burn your cheeks, something like spring, the unfolding of a new chapter in your life, or enlightenment - all that seems really far off.

However, when it appears to be closer, when the buds have popped out on the trees all around you, the quality of longing changes. It intensifies really. Sometimes a hell of a lot.

One of the paradoxes of Zen practice as I see it is that we rely on desire and we let it go, cut it off even. It's the juice that brings us through and also that which holds us back from waking up completely.

Delay is nothing but the quality of desire changing.