Esalen baths, #16

Something I've soaked up.

Recently I was at the Esalen baths on a quiet Monday after chopping vegetables in their kitchen all morning, and as I made my way from tub to tub and conversation to conversation I found myself with Ginni and Scott, talking what I’ll call “good life practices.”

I’d mentioned that I had a monk friend a few miles south at the New Camaldoli Hermitage, with whom I’ve had many wonderful conversations on similar subjects. After more talk and then a bit of a silence between us, the Pacific filling in the soundtrack to this scene, Scott asked if I’d gleaned any snippets of wisdom I could share. My response was fast and sure and an amalgamation of talks with Fr. Michael Fish (mentioned in Pico Iyer’s latest book), something I’d read in a Robertson Davies novel, things I’d read online by the inimitable Michael Kewley, and on an observation I’d had one day as I concluded my morning meditation, which all boils down to this: There is nothing to fear.

This message lands differently among us. To some it sounds cavalier or quaint. Others find it sounds ‘easy’ or even trite to say, and to others it can be a challenge. The more we discussed it, though, the more it made sense.

Ginni was a woman somewhere between 45 and 75, and had been a successful engineer-turned-real estate speculator, and she said she’d been ‘afraid’ her whole life. Scott, also successful in real estate, moved slowly over the validity of my declaration. I rent on to lay out that fear is literally all in the head (unless there’s a mountain lion or rattlesnake about to pounce), and that mastering our responses to present stimulus is the key to taming our so-called fears. For example: We might fear an uncomfortable conversation we know we need to have with someone, say, a boss or spouse; we might soon be attending an event we’re dreading; or we could be on the precipice of trying something new and far outside our comfort zone and are having tremendous difficulty just jumping all-in to the new reality—fear manifests itself in countless forms. The future is a set of preferences over which we may have little control, or considerable control, but still it’s “out there” and our fear is here and now, and getting in the way of fully owning this moment. It’s a wall that we have to go over, through, or turn away from.

But if you slow down and breathe deeply and look closely at that wall, you see that it’s a lot of bricks stacked. One day they were a a pile of potential, and the next day they’re a phantom getting in your way. Learn how to manage them and you find yourself mastering fear. Disassemble the wall, section by section and brick by brick, and the mass of bricks becomes not only manageable, but it makes you the one who manifests that new potential into something more of your making.

What you fear is often a wrapping around what you want. Just tear it down. Because it’s not there anyway.

There is nothing to fear.

KOAN #16

Today pay attention to other people’s gesticulations.

Just for a day or two, closely watch the hand motions of people when they talk. Are they expressive? or not. Are they vulgar? or not. What might be deduced from their hands’ gestures? Isn’t it a more vibrant world noticing such things?