Down to the stream to watch the jade flow

or back to the cliff to sit on a boulder

my mind like a cloud remains unattached

what do I need in the faraway world

I’m in the faraway world of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Dubai Airport, to be precise. Arrived from Boston almost 4 hours ago and have close to 5 more hours to go before boarding a flight to Tel Aviv, arriving at 7 in the morning and taking a train straight up to Jerusalem.

Glad to get here, though it’s still far from where I’m headed. When did my brother have his severe heart attack? I can’t even remember; all I know is that I seem to have spent day after day trying to find a flight to get me there, with no success unless I was ready to pay thousands of dollars more for Business Class. The Economy ticket I did get, finally, came with the help of Israeli peacemakers whose travel agent found me this, and good friends in Germany who gave me substantial financial help.

I was heartsick and sad, never losing faith or trust, but the stress was telling. I would be having lunch and suddenly think of another route I could try. Royal Jordanian to Amman, then taxi down to crossing with Israel (assuming one’s open), getting through, taxi to some bus station, bus to Jerusalem? Ethiopian Air to Addis Ababa and then to Israel because Ethiopian Air had not canceled its flights? Quickly I’d go back to the computer to look everything up.

What did I read at nights, when I was finally in bed? The poetry of Hanshan, or Cold Mountain as he’s often referred to, the wild and crazy Chan/Taoist master who lived under an enormous ledge and wrote his poems on rocks, and, as Wikipedia writes, may not have even existed.

The above verse is one of his. He wrote a lot of poems about the simplicity and spaciousness of his life, rejecting gifts of clothing and tributes and feeling free and easy to sit on a boulder all day long. As I read these the thought would come up: Am I crazy, hustling and bustling, digitally scurrying back and forth from one travel website to another, one airline site to another, making arrangements for my bedridden housemate and for Aussie, who returns to the vet (I believe) this morning Boston time, canceling this and that?

Isn’t that what Hanshan would tell me? Wouldn’t he point to the boulder he’s sitting on, maybe make me room alongside, tell me to stop all this rush and bother, make things simple, yield up all control, let go let go let go? Unless, of course, he jumps up and runs away with a loud cackle.

I have a brother. I have family. I have cares. Not just cares as in concerns, but cares arising from its Latin root, same root that appears in cure. That is the care I have in my heart.

Night after night I had this conversation with Hanshan. The days were full of activity, lots of misses and coming up short, and the nights were replete with poetry telling me there’s a way of life with more ease, more gladness, more peace.

In one way or another, it’s a conversation I’ve had with my Zen practice for many years.

Here I am in Dubai, sitting up till the flight to Tel Aviv leaves at 4:30 am, and reading:

I reached Cold Mountain and all cares stopped

no idle thoughts remained in my head

nothing to do I write poems on rocks

and trust the current like an unmoored boat

How moored can I feel in an airport in a city with man-made islands? But there is a current that carries me even as I remember that the boat still encounters eddies and waves that can overturn it at any moment.

Upon arrival I saw a text from a friend that they were rerouting planes from Tel Aviv to nearby countries because the airport was shut down. No, I wrote back after checking, they shut it down due to strikes against the government demanding a hostage deal, but they opened it up again.

Later, more personal news. My brother, who was very unwell over the past 24 hours, is back in the Emergency Room for more tests on his heart. We talked when he was in the ambulance. My sister is on her way to join him, his son, too. And this sister, only not till she leaves Dubai at 4:30 am.

“The flight leaves on time,” Customer Service told me. “You have seat 29K, by a window over the wing.”

A window seat over a wing, or a boulder on top of a mountain?