Читать книгу Expect Nothing - Clarice Bryan - Страница 11

PART I

TEACHERS

Each of us encounters many teachers in our lifetime. We don’t always know that they are our teachers at the time, this awareness only coming later. Even a rock can be a teacher, after all. As I move more deeply into Buddhism, I see that I have been blessed with good teachers all around me, though it has often taken me too long to glean their lessons. We are surrounded by teachers, if only we know enough to see them. One way to acknowledge and truly own the lessons life has for us is to identify and acknowledge the teachers of those lessons. Here are some of mine.

ONE

JUST LIVING

Our lives are lived in intense and anxious struggle, in a swirl of speed and aggression, in competing, grasping, possessing, and achieving, forever burdening ourselves with extraneous activities and preoccupations.

Sogyal Rinpoche

During my past life, one of expecting everything, I made some adjustments in the way I lived. Many things were reduced to the level of automatic responses.

I expected the alarm clock to go off when I set it, and as a result of storms and electrical outages, I purchased a windup alarm clock.

I expected there to be coffee and toast available for breakfast. That’s why I made a grocery list and bought stuff before it ran out.

I expected to have cleaned, ironed clothes ready to put on before I left the house. That’s why I washed and ironed them ahead of time.

I expected the car to start and have gas in it. So I filled it ahead of time and took it to the mechanic before it fell apart.

I had all these expectations. They weren’t met, for a variety of reasons—from relying on electric alarm clocks to being too tired to shop or being just plain forgetful.

But now, I really don’t expect any of these things. And I get an interesting surprise when other things happen—though I still have a windup clock.

Most of us have been through all these failures of expectations and these changes, and now, usually, most things go according to our expectations, at least those things that are within our own control and grasp. Control and grasp are so full of expectation, commitment, and energy, they seem as if they belong to the very core of life.

When other people get involved, like spouses, children, parents, friends, and strangers, even more disastrous events can take place.

The morning paper didn’t get delivered on time. Somebody drank all the milk. Somebody else didn’t get up in time to get to school without a ride.

The slow driver in the fast lane. So many cars on the road at this hour. The secretary is late again, and my tests aren’t ready. The lecturer assigned for today’s session thought it was scheduled for tomorrow. Two of the three committee members didn’t do their homework, so we had to postpone the meeting.

Other people just don’t seem to understand how hard I work, and that is why they fail to do what I need at the right time. Other people just don’t understand my simple concepts. Other people are involved in too many other things, instead of my things.

Or worse—other people are mean and vindictive. They don’t respect me. They come from a different planet. It’s all their fault I don’t get my work done and don’t get promoted.

There are only two alternatives here that I see:

1. If I want it all done right, I must do it all myself, which creates too much work and too many expectations in my already burdened life.

2. Expect nothing, which also happens to free and liberate me and bring me peace and joy. Of course, expect nothing takes much less energy. And it also frees other people and me from myself.

To release means to release mind from its prison of grasping, since you recognize that all pain and fear and distress arise from the craving of the grasping mind.

Sogyal Rinpoche

TWO

ONE OF MY GREATEST TEACHERS

Let none find fault in others. Let none see omissions and commissions in others. But let one see one’s own acts, done and undone.

Dhammapada, verse 50

John came to live with me after his father, my brother, died. John didn’t get along well with anyone but his father. John had been diagnosed as schizophrenic, though not violent nor terribly disabled, just socially different. He had finished high school, and he’d lived at home all his life. He was now in his forties. I have a little studio house on my property, so it seemed logical that he should move in with me. And that’s where he lives.

John has a fantastic memory, especially for numbers and dates. He’s a Star Trek fanatic and forever tries to tell anyone who will listen about some of his favorite stories—from years back or last night’s show. And he can recall these stories in great detail, which I assume is accurate. He has Star Trek cards, buttons, books, and he even goes to Star Trek conventions. Fortunately, I like Star Trek, but not all the time.

He also has some fundamental knowledge of cars, house repair, and carpentry, although it’s often not appropriate to the situation at hand. After several minor disasters, involving broken hoses in the engine of my car, fingers nearly cut off, goats eating the flowering plants instead of their own, tools and equipment left out to rust, and stuffing up the attic air vents in the belief that he could make the house warmer, we now talk about each project beforehand. We see what will work and what won’t. Even so, I often need to supervise closely. John would never make a good cat burglar because he never puts things back where he finds them. I can trace his every move.

John is generous and polite. He bathes and takes care of his clothes. And he means well, which is probably why we get along. Sometimes he gets a fixed idea of what should be done, and no matter how I try to convince him of the errors of his logic, he will often go ahead and muck something up anyway. But sometimes he is right, so I listen.

When he first came, I tried to make him part of my family. I didn’t charge him for room or board, but I did expect him to do things that needed doing by a strong man, which he is. I expected him to water the garden sometimes, but he was too inconsistent about it for most plants to do well. I expected him to weed, but that didn’t work at all. We rototilled and planted a vegetable garden for him to take care of and call his own. It soon became a marvelously thick green growth of tall weeds. I expected him to help me put up some fencing for the goats, which he did, but with much moaning and groaning.

In fact, moaning and groaning accompanied any hard physical labor. He helped me enclose the front porch so we now have a sun and plant room, but there was plenty of wailing and gnashing of teeth. I did not feel good when he moaned and groaned. I did not feel good when he failed to do something easy that I asked him to do.

I wanted him to find some way to develop self-respect, because he could do many things, just not always at the right time or place. I kept trying to think of things he could do that might ultimately lead to a job or productive output. I knew his father had taught him a lot about bricklaying, but he didn’t want to have anything to do with that.

He’d already tried classes at his own community college, apparently without success. So those suggestions went nowhere.

I tried to interest him in making copies of my bird feeder, which has a beautiful oriental design, so he could reproduce it and sell it to local nurseries, but that never got off the ground.

I offered to buy a premade, do-it-yourself little barn that he could put together for when and if we have miniature donkeys, but he was not thrilled with the idea.

He must have thought I was the aunt from hell.

To keep the goblins from making a mess out of my stomach when he didn’t meet my expectations, I quit having expectations. It didn’t look as if I could change him, so I would have to change me.

Now I charge him rent, though not board, but I only feed him dinner and snacks. He has a kitchen of his own. And now he can choose to do some of my chores or not. I pay him $6.00 per hour when he decides to. When he decides not to, which is often, I hire a graduate student, who is much more efficient and knowledgeable, for $10.00 per hour.

I cook dinner and he does the dishes, which he leaves all over the kitchen counters, even though he knows where they belong. He will weed-eat the lawn edges about once a month, take the garbage up to the street once a week—most of the time. He’ll even clean the goat barn sometimes. He records TV shows he knows I like when I’m going to miss them, often Star Trek.

And now my stomach is happy. I’m happy. In many ways, I do live close to Nirvana, not just in my dealings with John, but by applying my John-learning to everything else. And I think John is happier, too. His aunt found her way out of hell and into his real world, such as it is. We get along well and understand each other’s failings.

I have quit trying to make John into all I think he could be—or even some of what I think he could be. He may already be all he can be. That’s not for me to know, let alone expect.

The Tibetan Buddhists believe that there is no greater vehicle than compassion and forgiveness to counteract suffering caused by the self-grasping attitude.

Dalai Lama and Phil Borges

THREE

GROWING UP

We do not “come into” this world; we come OUT of it as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.

Alan Watts

I was fortunate growing up. I had a close, loving mother and a distant, but tolerant father. Both parents worked, and, as a result, we often had my grandmother or my aunt at home with my two older brothers and me.

Looking back, I think my parents did the most important thing parents can do for their children. They empowered us. I was allowed and encouraged to do lots of things. Until I was nine, we lived in San Francisco on Twin Peaks, a long way from the center of town. I remember hiking to the streetcar on Market Street and taking it to my mother’s office at the waterfront. She was a secretary for the Department of Agriculture. When I went to her office, we would go to lunch, and then I would go back home on the streetcar.

We all hiked a mile or so to school, and after school I went to Mrs. Drew’s for piano lessons, returning home on foot. In those early years, not much was expected of me, and I did what I did with no expectations for myself either. I especially did not expect to become a concert pianist.

As far as my culture’s expectations were concerned, I was too tall and too athletic. And, God forbid, when I was twelve and couldn’t read the stuff on the blackboard anymore, I had to wear glasses. So I had to work a bit harder than those who were the right size, who were fragile enough to be thought feminine, and who could see. I’m sure they had their own problems, because our culture doesn’t allow anyone to feel truly secure about appearance, even Ingrid Bergman.

When I was nine, my dad retired from working for the City of San Francisco and could now live outside the city limits, so we moved to San Mateo, twenty miles south of San Francisco. Dad was sixty when I was born. He didn’t retire until he was sixty-nine, because most of his friends who retired earlier seemed to die too soon. Mom was eighteen years younger than Dad and still worked and commuted to San Francisco. Now that my dad was around all day, he had expectations.

We bought a big old house, much in need of repair, and while my brothers helped Dad with the electrical, plumbing, and building stuff, I became chief house painter and gardener. And what a sloppy painter and gardener I was. I heard about it every day that summer. Though I did get better at painting and gardening, returning to school was a blessed relief.

Since my mother worked, I was also chief house cleaner, ironer, and kitchen aide. Mom preferred to be chief clothes washer (we had no electric washer or dryer) and chef. Perhaps she had tried me out on these and decided it was best to do them herself. I don’t remember. But I did develop some competencies and some positive self-esteem.

When I was sixteen, my dad said, “You’re old enough to get married now without our permission. I expect you to find someone as soon as you can.” But Mom said, “You can always get married. Live your own life first.” So I did.

Dad blamed the cod-liver oil I was fed as a kid for making me as tall as he was. He really wanted me to be petite, lovely, a good pianist, a good seamstress, and married. In some ways I’m sorry I did not live up to my father’s expectations, but I’m sure I’m more me now than if I had accepted his expectations as my own.

Fortunately, at that young age, I had a pretty good idea about what was me and what was not me, so I could make the choice.

A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct of what is beautiful and awe-inspiring is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.

Rachel Carson

FOUR

ANIMALS

Animals are here in part to grant glimpses of the grace of beauty.

Matthew Fox

Having five cats around the house helps me have no expectations. They are not goal-fulfilling creatures in any human sense. There is little one can expect of a cat.

Whenever I have a cat on my lap, I am able to look at it as a remarkable being with perfect markings, perfectly formed nose and eyes, and delightful ears, and I am always awed at such perfection even though each cat is different. Even their very strange unique characteristics seem perfect to me: six toes, lopsided coloring, scars, deafness, odiferous moments. I am satisfied and expect nothing more. Why don’t I feel this way with humans?

I do expect to get bopped by any cat that I do not pet mindfully. Each cat’s likes and dislikes are different, so mindful petting saves me a lot of scratches and bleeding. If I am not paying attention to their needs they have effective means of getting my attention. They are patient about learning my strange ways of communicating, so I try to be patient learning theirs.

At the moment, I don’t have a dog myself, yet when I see someone walking on the street with a dog, I always look at the dog. Just seeing a dog is satisfying in itself. When I drive by a field where there are any newborn animals—calves or kids or foals—I can’t help but smile and feel good. My pygmy goats have been a delight. They are full of affection and playfulness, without being aggressive or mean.

When I look at all these animals, I see Buddhists in action. They are mindful of all that is around them and of their every action. They appear to expect nothing, except for the few feeding habits I’ve forced upon them. They’ve taught me patience and love, mindfulness and compassion. They’ve taught me the value of learning as much as I can about them so that I can enjoy them even more.

There’s a cat sitting on the top of this page at this moment as I write this at the dining room table. There are muddy cat prints on several pages of this manuscript.

Animals teach us that one can be sensual and spiritual at the same time. They know that abstractions by themselves, such as money for example, are not what living and ecstasy are about.

Matthew Fox

FIVE

CATS AND BIRDS

We cannot fix the world, we cannot even fix our own life. By accepting failure we express our willingness to begin again, time after time. By recognizing failure we change, renew, adapt, listen, and grow. It is only by participating without expectation of success that we can ever truly open to the world, to suffering and to joy.

Thich Nhat Hanh

I do love cats. I love birds, too. Their markings are as amazing as those of a cat.

I have a large bird feeder atop a ten-foot metal pole. The metal pole prevents climbing creatures from climbing up to it. I do have to use a ladder to refill the feeder, but that’s kind of fun.

It is hard to have a wild kingdom in your own backyard, because not all beasts are as gentle as the goats. Cats are known to catch birds, and when they do, they usually bring them to me ...which, I guess, is a good thing.

This morning one of the gentlest of the cats brought me a beautiful cedar waxwing, and she was pretty good about letting me have it. Not all of them feel that way. But, in her tussle with the bird, it appeared that she had broken one of the bird’s wings. Usually I can release the birds after a while of rest and de-stressing, but this one couldn’t fly away.

I had no idea how to find out if it had a broken wing, except to watch it fail at flying. I had absolutely no idea what to do with a bird that had a broken wing. Sometimes I feel guilty when I am unable to solve problems in my own backyard. I expect to be able to take care of the place where I live. Well, phooey. I can’t always do that.

Fortunately my community has a wildlife center with a specialist in charge of small birds. My guilt disappeared when I left the bird with the bird lady.