Hunting season is always a good reminder that there’s no such thing as absolute safety. We don our bright orange vests (Aussie’s lost two already) and go into the woods. She hunts out the scent of two deer and runs after them, goodbye Aussie! Twenty minutes later a big buck crosses the road ahead of us, three minutes later a black-and-orange figure gives chase. “He’s got a big head start,” I tell a barking Henry by my side.

Hunting season implies lots of shooting, and both dogs get skittish, but this morning there were no shots with temperatures in the low 40s, which is warm for us. Eventually Aussie returns, her orange vest still on but wet and dirty—she splashes through endless ponds and brooks when she chases deer. I leash her, and we walk back to the car.

It was my first outing since Tuesday. I got a bad cold for a few days, which brings on its own sense of fragility. I couldn’t get out of bed before 4 pm. But now, Friday, the energy is coming back. I am grateful to Lori, my housemate, who got cold remedies that made a big difference. Those, and the refuge and comfort of sleep.

From Bernie I’ve learned that every situation calls for practice. The bigger the challenge, the more you have to take time to check in with yourself. When the brain or the emotions go crazy, check your breath, it doesn’t lie. Even if, like me, you have asthma, unless you’re in the middle of an attack the steadiness and depth of your breath, your ease of inhaling and exhaling, tells you a lot about your state of mind.

Last night I tuned in to an interview, sponsored by the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, of the veteran Buddhist teacher Joseph Goldstein, who talked about the similarities between writing poetry and meditation. I enjoyed what he said; mostly, I enjoyed his presence. I’d spent a little personal time with him on a few occasions, but not for years, and seeing him on the screen reassured me.

His is a very different presence from Bernie’s, in some way a different life. Goldstein is private, usually sticking to the teacher-student structure. He speaks in detail of meditative states and knows all the various facets of meditation practice, including traps and obstructions. He’s given to writing, living alone, and doing solo retreats. I appreciated hearing him express an open curiosity about everything, especially strange and unforeseen feelings.

Bernie was into taking action: developing one program after another, organizations galore, acting and speaking spontaneously with an emphasis on not-knowing, letting go of the grim, tight clutches of the self. He taught by example and was almost always in groups of people. “You want to really learn,” I heard him say very early on, “you live with your teacher. You see the whole person then, and you learn from everything.” You might say I did that. And while in those last decades of his life people didn’t usually live with us, they worked with us day to day, which was almost as good.

Teachers teach differently; students learn differently. Goldstein’s presence soothed me. He reminded me of how good this practice has been to me, how familiar, like family, the refuge and confidence I have found in it. It’s a cure for many things, including discouragement and depression. The strong back I’ve cultivated for decades actually holds me.

Also, gratitude for the compassion that I find in this world. For a long time, and especially over the last few months, I trudge off each morning, a stick of incense in my hand, to see Kwan-yin in the back yard and make requests: Heal him; take care of her; take care of Israelis; take care of Palestinians; cure this person or that, give strength to these people, etc.

And one morning I walked out there and said nothing but thank you. Thank you for the goodness in the world, which is infinite. For people’s kindness and care in difficult times, for the exceptionally bright nights we’ve been having this past week, for the heat in the house, for my eye doctor taking care of my vision, for the texts inquiring how I’m doing, for the butternut squash I have warming up in the oven, the turkey broth I made from last week’s Thanksgiving turkey that soothed me when I was sick.

Stop asking for more all the time, I tell myself. Open your eyes to what’s already here, always available.

Make a Donation to My Blog Donate To Immigrant Families

You can also send a check to: Eve Marko, POB 174, Montague, MA 01351. Please write on the memo line whether this is in support or immigrant families or of my blog. Thank you.

“You are an entitled dog!”

“What do you mean, I’m entitled? I hate that word.”

“You are an entitled dog, Aussie. You do whatever you want when we go on walks, you run after deer, I call you, you don’t listen to me so I have to go looking for you. You just do your thing!”

“Of course, I do my thing—not because I’m entitled but because I’m FREE. This is a free country and I’m a free dog.”

“No, you are an entitled dog. The rules of the game don’t seem to pertain to you.”

“That’s because I’m free. Free to be me. Free to let go of all your rules and behaviors.”

“That’s not what freedom means, Aussie. It doesn’t mean being ignorant or letting go of everything you’ve ever learned, as if you’re living on an island instead of with people. You know, Aussie, after Bernie died, some people referred to him as the freest man they ever met.”

“Because he did whatever he wanted?”

“No. Whatever he chose to do, he always worked inside a framework of rules and regulations, he couldn’t have achieved anything otherwise. What they meant, I believe, is that at any moment he could let go of conditioning, bear witness, and respond in some unexpected way. It’s what often made him funny because he surprised you. But he didn’t run away or not face the consequences of his decisions. There are consequences to what you do, Auss.”

“Like what?”

“Like that I have a bad cold from walking you yesterday afternoon. It was very windy and cold, you ran away, I waited a while till you came back while the freezing gusts went right through me, and a few hours later I got sick. Didn’t get up from bed today till 4, and then only to feed you.”

“An excellent reason to get out of bed. But you didn’t walk me!”

“Because I’m sick, Auss. You reaped the consequences of your actions. Freedom doesn’t mean we’re free of consequences. For instance, it’s hunting season. You could get shot when you chase deer.”

“I’m wearing my orange vest. Besides, I’m into nonviolence, I’m a pacifist dog. Don’t kill deer, just like to chase them.”

“Many people nowadays say they’re into nonviolence, Aussie, like it’s the thing to do. But Gandhi and his followers went through strict training in order to engage nonviolently. So did King and his people. Nonviolence doesn’t mean disengagement or just commenting on social media, it means taking specific actions addressing the situation that don’t cause physical harm to others. That’s not easy to do.”

“But you’re a Buddhist, of course you’re into nonviolence.”

“Not this Buddhist. Some 20 years ago I was walking with a dog—”

“Me?”

“You weren’t even born then. No, it was a neighbor’s dog, and suddenly a big German Shepherd ran down the hill and attacked the dog that was with me. She was very sweet and gentle, and now she was yelping in pain. I was sure he would kill her and without thinking I grabbed whatever lay nearby—it was some dried corn stalk—and hit him on his back with it.”

“You hit the dog?”

“Aussie, it wasn’t even a stick, it was a stalk that you’d barely feel on your furry back, but it caused him to back off and return home. But it could have been a heavy stick that might have hurt him, I acted quickly and automatically to save her, and I could have hurt him, too. That’s how I realized that I’m not trained to act nonviolently. That takes discipline, which I didn’t have then and don’t have now, either.”

“You hit the dog? You’re a brute! You’re savage! You’re a killer.”

“I didn’t kill anyone, Aussie.”

“You could have. You could have.”

“Maybe, I’ll never know. But I got some insight into how I behave when push comes to shove, when I feel my back against the wall or someone I care about is in big trouble, and nonviolence isn’t it.”

Make a Donation to My Blog Donate To Immigrant Families

You can also send a check to: Eve Marko, POB 174, Montague, MA 01351. Please write on the memo line whether this is in support or immigrant families or of my blog. Thank you.

 

I spent the long holiday week (Tuesday through Saturday) in Takoma Park, Maryland, where winter had still not arrived. The temperatures hugged 60 for a few days and the leaves, while dry, still retained their red. Aussie and I arrived there after a long drive to a generous, loving welcome.

And to songs. Lots of them. My 11-year-old grandson blasted out the song Let It Go, from the Disney blockbuster Frozen. Over and over, he’d walk around the house singing it at the top of his lungs, or else he’d offer to do a show after dinner. We’d sit in the living room, he’d put on an instrumental version, leave, re-enter from the side doorway, spread his arms wide, and belt out the song, striding up and down the room like a macho version of Elsa in the show, swinging his left arm up and down, then the right, waving both arms to the sides as though pushing aside a curtain.

Not just Let It Go in English. After that he treats us to his rendition of the song in German, then Hebrew, then Portuguese, and finally, Turkish. Let it go! Let it go! he sings in his high-pitched voice, loud enough to be heard by the entire street. Let it go! Let it go! Let it go!

Letting go is a big practice in Zen, has been for well over a millennium, and refers to letting go of fixed ideas of all kinds, the scaffolding holding up a separate self and personality. But you know that it’s really finally made it when Disney makes of it a huge musical hit, topping all the charts.

In this American can-do culture, everything should be possible if only you’re ready to dream it, work hard, make friends with the right frog, rooster, or tiger, and when you yell that you’ve finally let it go, make sure the warm, black wrap you’ve been wearing to make it up the icy mountains (the movie, after all, is called Frozen for a reason) drops off your shoulders to reveal you in a silver, skin-tight dress. When you’ve let it all go you wind up wearing a strapless containing more jewels than Elizabeth Taylor ever befriended.

Elsa sings of letting go of her family’s training and expectations, their cautions on how to behave like a lady, and now becoming who she really is: wild, emotional, FREE! “The past is in the past,” cries Elsa.

Just make the right wish, maybe go through a couple of challenges and frustrations that you will, of course, overcome since you’re a star, and an hour later it’s done! Presto! You’re free, a hero, beloved and adored, and maybe have found a good-looking guy or gal to boot.

I was amused to hear my grandson sing the song in Hebrew, where let it go was translated into la’azov, which means to leave. As in: Leave behind your family, the people, the past. Leave everything behind you—and fly.

Trouble is, they don’t leave you, even if you think you’re ready to leave them.

Before driving down for Thanksgiving, I had tea with a friend at home. He reminded me that, after Bernie’s stroke, he and his wife would have dinner with him every once in a while, when I was traveling. The food would be ready, and different people, mostly my students or his, would come to warm it up and eat alongside him. At the end he’d thank them, bid them good night, and go upstairs, and they would wash the dishes in the kitchen and leave.

“He said something to me then,” my friend said, “that I can’t forget. He said: ‘There’s one life, and we all share that life.’”

Many years ago, I also wanted to put my family behind me, let it all go, start from scratch, pretend none of it existed. The best thing I’ve ever done was let go of that.

“Sometimes,” I told my grandson after hearing the song in six different languages some 300 times, “it’s imp9ortant to let go of letting go.”

He let go of that advice awfully fast.

Speaking of letting go, next week begins our annual Enlightenment Retreat. Participation is still open, even for part-time attendance, and there are scholarships. Go here for details.

Make a Donation to My Blog Donate To Immigrant Families

You can also send a check to: Eve Marko, POB 174, Montague, MA 01351. Please write on the memo line whether this is in support or immigrant families or of my blog. Thank you.

“Time to put your phosphorescent green vest on, Aussie.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s deer hunting season.”

“You need a season to hunt deer?”

As white-tailed deer move fast in the forest and the plains, as shots erupt everywhere and Aussie can’t decide whether to stay in the car or join the hunt, we’re also entering a season, a season of thanksgiving. I don’t think I remember one as challenging as this year’s.

Later today I’ll head down to NY to stay overnight with friends and continue down tomorrow morning to Takoma Park, Maryland, right on the border of Washington, DC, home to Alisa Glassman and her family. Till Bernie died, the family always came up here for Thanksgiving. After he died, Aussie and I drive down.

“That means no off-leash walks till Sunday,” I warn her.

“But no hunters,” she replies happily. She hates the sound of guns.

Giving thanks isn’t coming easily. I feel a weight inside on account of my family living in Israel, as well as  Palestinian friends, and even the gut feeling that the Middle East is not past the worst, worse may still be ahead. Unless both sides crash into a wall.

Bernie, an American football fan, likes to tell the story of a not particularly smart fullback who got the football and ran with it to the end line for a touchdown, but continued running hard till he rammed straight into the wall separating fans from the field and got knocked out. He finally got up after a few minutes, dizzy and bleary-eyed, shook his head, and said to his teammates: “Boy, they’ve got some linebacker there!” He was convinced he’d run into a player from the other team when he’d really run into the wall.

Armies and militias fight and hurt one another, but on another level, they’re running into walls: the limits of what they can do without incurring huge losses, the limits of what any military can do when what’s at stake is a political, not a military, solution.

I give thanks not by mechanically rolling off all the different things I’m grateful for—my home, the dogs, family, practice, dinner last night with Jimena and Byron Pareja. It’s the small things, like holding Llama Louie when Henry brings it to me to throw for the 5,340^th time on a Sunday morning, admiring its green and red colors and the squeaks (not in Tibetan) as I throw it for the little dog. I connect with Henry’s shiny, happy eyes, the soft growl in his throat, the sounds of Aussie gnawing contently on her Sunday morning marrow bone behind us.

I connect and laugh with Antonio, who came to help us finally get rid of massive piles of autumn leaves, and with the earth whose green color I haven’t seen for two months, long grass nuzzling at my shins. Being hugged by grandson Milo, who gives the best hugs.

My brain makes up an encyclopedic list of the ingredients constituting my rich and happy life, but my heart is into connecting with small things, including the voices of family and friends from across the country, across the world.

And the Middle East? Violence seems to have its sway now. I settle back, gathering my strength. Get the leaves out, clean the house, take care of people, prepare for retreat in December, and be ready, because there will be a change. There will be a change.

As part of this week of Thanksgiving, I ask you to please support this blog with a donation. I just wrote a well-earned check to Silvana Gravini, who manages my blog and website, and will be paying more soon. The blog is free to every reader—and it needs support, like everyone and everything else in this universe. I’m grateful for my usual three posts a week, they force me to look inside, clarify, and articulate emotions that are often mixed and jumbled. They force me to connect with readers and the outside world, rather than staying private and quiet.

The words aren’t always the right words, the map isn’t the life. What do I trust? Where the words come from.

So yes, on this day when I begin my drive south, feeling deep gratitude to you faithful readers who follow the crooked, meandering path of one woman’s life, please consider making a donation to this blog by using the button below.

Make a Donation to My Blog Donate To Immigrant Families

You can also send a check to: Eve Marko, POB 174, Montague, MA 01351. Please write on the memo line whether this is in support or immigrant families or of my blog. Thank you.

 

“Bernie, guess what? I had such a powerful dream!”

He lies there, listening.

“I dreamt that I was in Africa, standing in the veldt. The earth is flat, the sky is huge overhead, and I can’t see you or anyone there, I’m standing in the middle of the veldt, just me, all alone.”

“Oy Geveldt,” he says, without missing a beat.

“Isn’t there anything you take seriously?” I demand.

“Probably not,” he laughs, pleased with himself.

Even Bernie didn’t have much humor when it came to the Middle East. There was a period of years when few dinners passed by without his making a cynical allusion to the latest law the Israeli government had passed or the latest speech by Bibi, accompanied by a flash of anger, which was rare for him. The Zen master was Jewish through and through, from a Communist family. As far as he was concerned, Jews had to work on behalf of the underdogs at all times and the modern state of Israel was no underdog.

Someone said to me the other day that it was good that Bernie died and didn’t live to see this latest brutal war. I wasn’t sure. By the time Bernie died, he was tired; he’d seen a lot. He probably guessed that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was not going to be resolved anytime soon, at least not in his lifetime. His anger finally left him, leaving just a deep sorrow.

Tomorrow, at noon my time, the Zen Peacemakers will host a program commemorating Bernie on the 5^thanniversary of his death, which is November 4, focusing on his favorite Order. No, not the Zen Peacemaker Order, the Order of Disorder. (You can take part by going to www.zenpeacemakers.org, scrolling down to Community Events and registering there.) His favorite clowns will be there, but the order wasn’t called the Order of Clowns, it was called the Order of Disorder.

You’d have thought the man loved disorder. He seemed to have such a high tolerance for it. And if you worked with him, you learned to deal with disorder, too.

He knew all about rigid retreat schedules, he knew all about the relentless work it took to build the Greyston companies and organizations, a bakery and apartments for homeless families and childcare centers and an AIDS center, not to mention a whole new dharma family comprising many sanghas in his lineage of Zen Peacemakers. He had his goals, all right—and he loved disorder; he couldn’t help himself.

He worked a lot, but he took the time to notice things sideways. After all, life was disorderly and he was practicing with it, not trying to control it. “Whatever you exclude from the mandala of your practice will come back to sabotage you,” he’d say. He couldn’t include everything, but it felt like he tried.

Working with Bernie was like driving fast with him on a highway towards some destination, say, stabilizing the Greyston Bakery. Only on the way we’d pass off-ramps with signs saying: Childcare for poor families or No housing for people with AIDS, and off he’d go, driving up those ramps to explore the need, see what he could do, include all those needs in the mandala. And if that kept the Bakery insecure, so be it.

It drove us crazy.

At times, the whole thing would be too much even for him. Sometimes our life together would feel too much for him. “You know what I want to do? I want to go on the streets and never come back,” he’d tell me on the way out the door. And I, reminding him of the creature comforts he loved, would retort: “And make sure you take your 50-inch TV screen with you.”

This driven man dreamed of having no responsibilities at all. He dreamed of meandering the streets around Tompkins Park in New York City, smoking a cigar butt, sitting on a bench in the sun, making small talk with street people, picking up a paper coffee cup and going into a bodega for a free cup of coffee. He wanted to be a bum.

He had a good, long run and I often run into people who knew him at some stage of his life of many stages. They still talk of him as they knew him then–the strict young Zen teacher in ZCLA, the tough CEO in Yonkers–as if that was who he really was. I knew him for 35 years and I can’t tell you who he was. Slippery as an eel; just when you thought you had him, he slipped out.

There are so many death scenes of Zen masters in the Zen literature. Just recently I thought of his dying in the ER, suddenly and unexpectedly, and saying to me: “Eve, say a word of Zen!”

But he had no time for that. Before I could say or do anything, death came, and he plunged into it like he plunged everywhere else. He lived bigly, and then just died. Not passed, died.

He’s still on the streets somewhere downtown in New York City. I don’t go down there much anymore, but if I did, I’d look for a pudgy guy wearing an olive-green sweater with holes in the arms, maybe a black rainhat in bad weather, a grizzled face, watching this world’s turmoil and trouble passing by. Not managing anything anymore, not doing anything anymore. Not thinking about the Zen Peacemakers or Greyston or what’s needed. Watching the people go by, maybe wondering why they’re in such a hurry. Why they look strained and stressed, why they’re unhappy.

It’s what I wish you, Berns.

Photo by Peter Cunningham

Make a Donation to My Blog Donate To Immigrant Families

You can also send a check to: Eve Marko, POB 174, Montague, MA 01351. Please write on the memo line whether this is in support or immigrant families or of my blog. Thank you.

Last Saturday, right after our sitting schedule, I called Violet Catches. Violet, a member of the Cheyenne River Lakota, comes from a well-known family of medicine men, and I’ve thought of her as a medicine woman for years, though if she heard say  that she’d probably shake her head and berate me soundly.

“Violet, the war in the Middle East is so painful, I wish I could do something. My family is involved, I have friends both in Israel and Palestine. What do I do?”

“You know, Eve,” she said, “I’ve always said to pray. You have heard this from me before, I pray many times in the day. But lately I’ve done something else. I take a bowl of water, I light a candle and put it in the water. I am combining two different elements, you see. There is earth, air, fire, and water. Water and fire don’t usually go together, so I bring them together in one bowl, see?”

I have done this since Saturday. The bowl lies in the living room, not far from one of the plants I brought inside on Monday (good thing, since it snowed this morning). It’s also not far from a memorial altar I have for people I know who have died—my parents, Bernie, others. There is always an oil candle burning there, but this one has both fire and water.

There are many narratives going on in my head, but two in particular, and they’re like fire and water. One is my personal, family narrative that talks of catastrophe, always being on guard, rooting out enemies, vigilance. It was triggered big-time on October 7, to my great surprise. I hadn’t felt such powerful emotions of identifying with a family and a nation for many years.

Whenever I fly to Israel, I sense that big story arising all around me as soon as the plane lands in Tel-Aviv. The language, the buzzing phones, the crowd of family members with flowers and balloons—all as familiar to me as blood, beckoning to me: You’re part of the family, we love you, come on, see it our way.

I hold back because there’s another narrative for me, one arising from years of Zen Buddhist practice, and that story isn’t all about us. That story features Bernie’s One Body. It says that separation is a delusion, that differences are there to celebrate but not to judge or compare or discriminate, and that the best investment of your energy and work is to bear witness as much and as broadly as possible, and then take action.

“Whatever you don’t bring into the mandala of your practice will sabotage you again and again,” I heard him say many times.

In the Middle East and elsewhere, always the question is: Who are you excluding? What can you do about it?

That has not been my family story. It has not been the story that nurtured the next generation, and now, what with the war, it probably won’t be the story for the generation after. Already I hear more stridency in the air, more labeling, more name-calling. I don’t blame anyone, it’s hard not to fall into that when you’re being shot at, or sirens set off because of incoming rockets.

My niece’s husband was down by Gaza from October 7, among the first Israelis to get there, and he was involved in cross-border rescues and retrieval of bodies, even while being shot at. After a week of this he had his first family leave of 8 hours and everyone got very emotional, lots of tears shed by him, his wife, and their children.

After he left my niece said: “I don’t care about the truth, I care about family.” When it comes to family, don’t talk ideals, don’t talk truth, don’t say anything. Family is family. She knows the other narrative, her husband, too, but they have a close marriage and five children, and when it comes to family, little else matters.

 I put the pottery bowl on the coffee table and lit the small candle, letting it float on the water. The light never floats to the center, it seems to hug the edges. Right now, I don’t know how to bring the two together, though that has been a lifetime’s dream. What I’m doing is making space for each. In the beginning I felt as if they were banging at the membranes of my brain, trying to get at each other, trying to vanquish each other. No longer. Slowly I cultivate an internal space big enough to accommodate both.

“You have a right to exist,” I tell one.

“You have a right to be heard,” I tell the other.

Make a Donation to My Blog Donate To Immigrant Families

You can also send a check to: Eve Marko, POB 174, Montague, MA 01351. Please write on the memo line whether this is in support or immigrant families or of my blog. Thank you.

Temperatures dropped yesterday, still dropping today, and late yesterday afternoon I finally brought in the houseplants. I tend to leave them out to deal with the cooling temperatures of fall till the first freeze alert.

Bringing plants indoors is one of our seasonal milestones. First the plants, then changing to the winter tires that are stored in the garage, and when the earth really freezes, filling some 5 birdfeeders and hanging them in back. Which means that Boris, the 500-pound black bear, may return. He checked up on us 2 weeks ago, slamming two ladders on the ground and destroying the nearby fence. Which means that we’ll have to get the pans and heavy spoon ready by the back door so that Lori could run out at night and bang away to frighten him.

Boris doesn’t frighten easily.

A teaching method in Zen is the study of koans. The miscellaneous ones especially—How do you stop a rowing boat? Hide yourself in a pillar, and now my favorite one: Stop the fighting across the river—challenge you to collapse space and distance and become the very thing that is far away, or separate from you.

My question since the war in Israel and Gaza broke out has been: How do I collapse the distance between me, enjoying the last of a New England fall, and the brutal reality on the ground there? All the media in the world won’t make me the young people shot down as they run, children buried under rubble, entire families bloodied and dead in their homes or under their homes, bombarded and killed. Stop the fighting across the river. If we’re truly One Body, that fighting isn’t just across the river, or across two seas.

“Sirens are going on in Jerusalem,” my brother tells me on his car phone, on his way north. Incoming rockets.

“They must have known you were leaving the city,” I tease him. even as my heart beats faster and I hurry to look at news on I-Net, the Israeli electronic news, updating all the time. If rockets were coming here, I think, Henry would be shaking without stop, Aussie would be on her way to Canada, and me? I can’t even stand the sound of firecrackers.

My life isn’t at stake, destruction isn’t around the corner. But everything around me has turned permeable, as if I’ve turned into one of those European sponges that start out firm and thin, then plump up as they take in more and more dishwater. I haven’t gained weight, nor has my soul shriveled. But something is changing in the heartbeat of this world—because of wars, radical weather patterns coming out of climate change, mass destruction of species, the loss of curiosity and retrenchment in certainty.

How do you stop the fighting across the river?

There are other koans, too: How do I die in a blaze of glory at sunset (see photo)? How do I stand in the water, fur dripping blissfully, as if an enormous reservoir has become my private, personal pool?

It rained Sunday, temperatures diving, and I felt inside as overcast as it was outside. I went up to bed. Aussie, as usual, slept downstairs, but with my housemate gone for the weekend, her dog, Henry, the Illegal Chihuahua, came to my room and lay on the bed, warming it up for me. Once I’m recumbent and begin to read, he scratches the blanket above me, his sign that he wants to go under. I open up the blanket, he slides in, and settles down, all 15 pounds of him, on top of my belly.

“Henry, get off,” I groan.

He stays where he is. I hear the rain outside, sense the chill draft coming in through a slightly raised window, feel Henry on my belly, and it occurs to me that life gives me many wonderful gifts, that usually I notice just a few, like the last beams of sun hitting the yellow leaves at sunset, or the gurgling sound of water coming down the hill –and now a little dog lying on my belly, snoring softly, his small body rising and falling, the quiet house, the sound of rain.

This coming Thursday we’ll meet on Zoom again to share whatever comes up from the war in the Middle East. The Zoom will take place on Thursday at 14:00 (2 pm) US Eastern time. Please keep in mind that many countries in Europe and the Middle East turned back their clocks by an hour this past weekend, which may reduce the time lag between them and the US, so check what time that would be for you.

If you haven’t yet gotten the link by email, email me at eve@zenpeacemakers.com and feel free to share the invitation with anyone you think may be interested.

Next week, November 9, Zen Peacemakers will host a forum on the war in the Middle East, featuring some of the people that have been with us on Zoom. The program is free, just go on their website (www.zenpeacemakers.org), scroll down and hit Community Events, and you’ll find it there along with registration info.

Make a Donation to My Blog Donate To Immigrant Families

You can also send a check to: Eve Marko, POB 174, Montague, MA 01351. Please write on the memo line whether this is in support or immigrant families or of my blog. Thank you.

Paul Gorman founded the National Religious Partnership for the Environment in 1991, back when he was working with Dean James Morton in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Episcopal flagship cathedral in New York City and one of the biggest cathedrals in the world. Paul had served as a speechwriter and press secretary for Eugene McCarthy back when the latter challenged Lyndon Johnson for the 1968 Democratic nomination for President based on opposition to the Vietnam War.

NRPE was the first interfaith organization, led by Christian ministers of all faiths, rabbis, Imams, Buddhists, Hindus, Native people, and other religious leaders, raising consciousness about environmental degradation, educating and training its clergy members not just to preach to their congregations but also to use the power of cross-religious partnerships to raise consciousness and push for political solutions. Clergy leaders would use excerpts from their own religious texts to illustrate that taking care of the earth and all species was a God-given mandate.

At some point in the first decade of this millennium, during the time of the George W. Bush White House, Paul started working with evangelical Christians, trying to persuade them to join this movement. A few welcomed him, but for others it was not an easy sell.

He told us over dinner that he was invited to a conference of evangelical leaders. He was an excellent speaker and a highly persuasive presenter. He went into some detail about what is happening around the world, with a focus on climate change, described the work of NRPE, and proposed that the Christian evangelical movement take part because there was no time to be lost.

They listened politely, he told us, then called a break. During the break, the head of the conference took Paul aside: “Paul, this was all very interesting, thank you,” he said. “But please tell me one thing: Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your savior?”

It was obvious to Paul that everything depended on his answer. By birth, he himself was both Jewish and Christian. He had collaborated with Ram Dass in the book How Can I Help, knew a great deal about various traditions, and I believe identified mostly as a Christian, though not as an evangelical.

“What answer did you give?” I asked.

He gave an answer that pleased his conscience, he told me. Nevertheless, it was clear that it wasn’t sufficient for the group of evangelicals, and his efforts met with no success.

I remembered that this morning, when I gave a talk as part of a Zen retreat. I thought of all the infinite stories of our universe, the narratives that shape us but also tear us apart. I thought of the humanitarian narrative around stopping to bomb Gaza and feeling horror at the thousands of people killed, including so many children.

I also thought of the conflicting narrative I carry as a Jewish woman, born in Israel to parents who went through wars and Holocaust, part of a family whose own sons discovered the gruesome murders that took place 3 weeks ago, all of whom are now in military uniform. The four of them came for a leave of 8-12 hours yesterday and my brother said it was his best birthday gift ever.

Day by day I bear witness to different narratives. Sometimes they’re so similar, you just have to change the names and pronouns and they’ll sound exactly the same. For years I felt as an outlier in the family due to my feelings about the Israeli occupation of Palestinians. Now I feel more torn than ever before.

“Why?” my sister asked me.

“Because that Saturday Israel lost,” I told her simply. Suddenly, its military, technological and economic advantages were nothing to take for granted. And I think that with its ongoing bombardment, regardless of how much the army describes it as hitting Hamas targets, it’s still losing, its soul if nothing else.

There are political solutions to this, not military. The world has to step in.

Today was our last warm day; temperatures tomorrow will be lower by at least 25 degrees Fahrenheit. I took the dogs for a walk and Aussie waded into the water and stood there, looking blissfully around, perhaps aware she might not do this again till next spring.

Make a Donation to My Blog Donate To Immigrant Families

You can also send a check to: Eve Marko, POB 174, Montague, MA 01351. Please write on the memo line whether this is in support or immigrant families or of my blog. Thank you.

“What are you doing, Illegal Chihuahua?”

“I put Llama Louie where he belongs, right by the Senora’s Kwan-yin.”

“Why, dumb-dumb?”

“Llama Louie is my guru, so he should be by the Senora’s image for compassion.”

“Enough already with all these statues. Enough of the goddess of compassion, enough of gurus. Who needs them? Last I counted, there are some five altars inside the house, not to mention Kwan-yin outside, and now Llama Louie.”

“The Senora says we need all the help we can get.”

“From whom, Henry? Saviors? Gurus? Gods? What has any of them done for you lately?”

“Before Llama Louie came into the house, I was one pound underweight. He came, and in three days I gained a pound. All honor to Llama Louie.”

“And to the chicken and mashed potatoes that the Senora’s friend brought yesterday.”

“Before Llama Louie arrived, I had a terrible stomachache. He came and the stomachache stopped.”

“Maybe because you stopped eating grass, silly Chihuahua.”

“Before Llama Louie came, I was throwing the stuffed turtle and green alligator all over the house.”

“And now?”

“I’m throwing Llama Louie all over the house. But he is a great compassionate being who loves everyone, so he doesn’t mind.”

“You were an obsessive neurotic then, Henry, and you’re an obsessive neurotic now, which you can’t help because you’re a Chihuahua.”

“Llama Louie accepts me as I am. He has great compassion.”

“Here it is, the famous C word. Compassion compassion compassion. Everybody talks about it. What the hell does it mean?”

“It means—it means—”

“You can say it in Spanish, Mr. Illiterate.”

“It means—it means—”

“What? That you like everybody? That you’re kindly disposed to everyone?”

“That I act with loving kindness.”

“And where has that got you, Henry? What has that got any of us? What has that got everybody in the Middle East?”

“I don’t know, Aussie, but it makes sense. We’re all alike.”

“You and me—alike?”

“Llama Louie says that we all want the same things. We want grilled chicken if we can have it, kibble when we can’t get grilled chicken. We want water, walks, treats after walks, car rides, a warm blanket for the night, and marrow bones on Sunday morning. Don’t we all want that, Aussie? Have I missed anything?”

“Growling at the Federal Express truck. Scaring the hell out of anybody who comes down the driveway.”

“You see? We all want the same basic things. When we see that, we start working together.”

“That’s what I hate about all spiritual teachers. Dreamers, every single one of them. Not a practical bone in their entire body.”

“They’re completely practical, Aussie. If we all want the same things, why fight?”

“I hate spiritual teachers, Henry. What good are they? Loving kindness, compassion, deep listening, love, all a lot of hooey.”

“Llama Louie is not hooey.”

“All a bunch of do-nothings who live in a fantasy world. Humans are generally ridiculous, as you know, it’s why they get into so much trouble.”

“I love humans, Aussie. One day humans will see the errors of their ways and they’ll become more like us.”

“Listen, Illegal, do you know how humans refer to this world? Do you know how they explain it to their children when they teach them to beat up on the weaker kids and always, always come out on top? They tell them they got to do this because—get this, Henry—it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there.”

“But we don’t eat each other, Aussie.”

“Damn right, pooch.”

Make a Donation to My Blog Donate To Immigrant Families

You can also send a check to: Eve Marko, POB 174, Montague, MA 01351. Please write on the memo line whether this is in support or immigrant families or of my blog. Thank you.

On Sunday I went out with the dogs into the forest. My mind is busy and we get lost. Correction: I get lost; Aussie always seems to know where she is and the path to the car. This has happened lots of time in the past, no problem, but bushwhacking your way down is not pleasant.

At first, I blame my mind’s distractibility for getting lost, but when I finally find my way, I notice that a tree had fallen. We’ve had lots of rain, tree roots get soaked and weaken, roads and paths get blocked. This one had fallen over the path right where another was crisscrossing it, and I followed in the wrong direction.

Circumstances and conditions of my life change, and I change with them. Often, I feel lost and unable to get back to my regular life. Maybe, as a consequence, I’ll find a better path, maybe I won’t. Regardless, I no longer walk in the same way I’ve walked before. What I have is trust that if I put one foot ahead of the other, I’ll find out. I have confidence in walking rather than standing, worrying, or opining.

This is how I start the days now: I call family members. Sister, brother, a niece or nephew. Nephews are all in the army, nieces singlehandedly taking care of lots of children. I need to know how they’re doing wherever they are—Jerusalem, south by the Gaza border, their homes, the West Bank.

I want to hear and listen to everything, uncensured by personal fears and apprehensions. I hear terrible stories, see horrific videos, and resist the impulse to turn away or close my eyes. Not because of an appetite for violence. You need to see things, I remind myself. You need to listen and see.

After family, I talk and listen to others.

Pogroms are mentioned again and again. I don’t agree, I tell my brother. What took place on October 7 was horrific, probably worse than anything done in East Europe and Russia many years ago. But those old-time pogroms were perpetuated on small communities of Jewish families, impoverished and powerless like their neighbors, often used as scapegoats by the aristocracy and local churches. They had no agency.

That’s not true here. Jews in Israel have had plenty of agency and need to question their assumptions and decisions. Context makes a big difference. He doesn’t agree with me, we have words but no blame. It’s an old, old argument in our family.

Luckily, both of us don’t take our own opinions too seriously. Something more important is at stake here, much more important than opinions.

I was puzzling over why it suddenly became important for me to help create spaces for different people to express feelings and views on what is happening in the Middle East. This afternoon I talked at some length with poet and teacher Peter Levitt. He described a meditation space as one where you actually witness thoughts and opinions come and go, one after another, identities and attachments coming up and leaving, followed often by more and more, sometimes not.

At some point you realize you are not those identities and statements, something else is at work here. Those tight opinions bind you like a noose, preventing you from seeing anything else. When you can ease yourself out of their clutches you see that life in fact goes on without them. There’s a life force at work, and if you can free yourself from that mental siege, you sense the direction of that life force more clearly and can align yourself and your life with it.

Talking about this with Peter, I realized that that is the space I try to create when a group of us, each one different, sometimes from different religions, cultures, or countries, meet on Zoom to talk. Views come and go, opinions are exchanged. One arises, then there’s quiet, another arises, more quiet, and another, more quiet, etc.

The more views, the merrier, I say. No need to be spiritually correct, no need to modulate anything. If you’re forceful, be forceful. Angry, be angry. You want to cry, cry. Here’s a space where everything is permitted. Opinions and feelings arise and fall, come and go.

Meantime, something else becomes visible, something that’s always there but in the background, obscured by the bedlam of the mind. Peter says that people think that enlightenment is when the Buddha comes in the front door to the sound of big trumpets and fireworks, but she usually comes in the back door, quietly. Sees who’s around, who’s paying attention. Who’s listening for her. When we’re very upset, we don’t listen or sense anything till we’ve had our say, expended energy. Only then can we see who else is in the room.

I’m so grateful to Peter for that talk. We’ll have another such gathering this coming Thursday, October 26, at 2:00 pm US Eastern time, or 14:00. I’ve already emailed the link to all those who’ve attended before; if you wish to attend, email me at eve@zenpeacemakers.com.

When Henry, Aussie, and I got lost that morning, things felt chaotic, certainty gone, absent sense of direction and therefore destination. In the middle of it, I looked out and saw a small pond with groups of ducks and mallards floating on the water. Many were males, with green heads and yellow beaks, unbothered by the dogs, unbothered by me, swimming in large circles, their young ones following.

Make a Donation to My Blog Donate To Immigrant Families

You can also send a check to: Eve Marko, POB 174, Montague, MA 01351. Please write on the memo line whether this is in support or immigrant families or of my blog. Thank you.