Returning

My grandfather lived in a run-down shotgun shack. He wasn’t my real grandfather but that’s what I called him. He was my mother’s step-father. He lived far away from us in the Deep South where life was very difficult, where the ground wasn’t dirt at all but just hard-packed red clay and nothing grew but tall thistles, poverty, and weeds.
My father bought an old run-down farm for next to nothing. Even though there wasn’t anything there to steal he worried someone might break in to the tiny cabin perched precariously on a hilltop so together he and my mother talked the old man into coming there to live and to watch over the place.
I was a less than ideal child. I could never get along with my mother; my father was always gone working. But when we visited her step-father way down there in Alabama I got along splendidly with the old man. So one day my father decided in order to ameliorate peace in the household that I should go and live with grandfather. I jumped at the chance.
The old man didn’t much care whether I went to school or not, so most days I didn’t bother going. We spent our time together smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and drinking moonshine whiskey he bought at the local pool hall and cutting posts to sell at the lumber yard. Each post had to be a certain length; each post had to be de-barked with a sharp blade, otherwise we wouldn’t get full price, which didn’t amount to much more than a few pennies each anyhow.
The lumberyard where we sold our posts sat just outside of a little town no one ever heard of called Finger. The town had one store, a general store, where all the old men gathered around the wood stove in both summer and winter. The cans lining the shelves were dusty as were the dry goods. The proprietor always watched me when we stopped there as if he was sure I had come there to shoplift what I could. While he watched me, grandfather filled his bib overall pockets with tins of beans and sardines and sacks of tobacco and packets of rolling papers.
Returning home in his rickety pickup truck that he let me drive the old man would laugh a toothless cackle as he pulled out the loot he had garnered while I distracted the store owner. Looking back I suppose it wasn’t right us doing what we did but we did it to survive. Cutting posts was a poor day’s pay. It barely kept us in gas and whiskey. And I suppose you could say the old man was half-loony by that time anyway. He probably belonged in a home but that would have killed him quicker than the whiskey and the cold.
The old man liked to tell stories of the days when he had been young and I liked to listen. I suppose all old people enjoy remembering the exploits of their youth. I often wondered if the fact of their memories was different than the memories themselves. Though I would never accuse the old man of lying it seemed as if he was apt to embellish the good while neglecting the terrible.
I remember that even though it was in the deep south of Alabama the winters were very cold at times. The shack where we lived had no furnace; we had an old rusted-iron wood stove in the living room that served to warm the house as well as to cook our food and boil up water for us to get up to our necks in when we had a mind to.
The front door consisted of an aluminum screen tacked onto a wooden frame. In an effort to keep the cold winter winds at bay we’d tape cardboard over the screen but it only served to lessen the freezing grip that the cold took on that old house.
Just as the cold began fading during my second winter there the old man began coughing up gray goop that he spit into a spittoon that he kept in the living room. From the rattling sounds of his breathing I knew he wasn’t feeling well but when I walked to the nearest neighbor to call my folks my father said the old man would be fine, not to worry about him.
A couple mornings later my grandfather didn’t come out of his bedroom. He always went to bed when the sun went down and rose when it came up. So by noon when he still hadn’t emerged I peeked into his room. I could tell by the lack of movement under the covers that the old man had passed on during the night.
I walked across the hollow on a dirt road to call my folks again. At that time there was only forest and grasslands; the people who lived thereabouts were very poor. They looked out for one another though in a way that was foreign to me being raised in the north. When I got to the door of the neighbor’s house to use their phone I broke down crying. I had loved the old man in my own way. I knew I would have to go back north to live in a place for which I had no love.
It was in the returning that I came to know myself better, however. I went back to my lessons. I graduated from high school with honors. I had grown determined not to end up the same way as my folks; though I loved my grandfather I had no inclination to become like him either. I entered a university out east; later I went to law school; I became a busy attorney working out of New York City with clients who trusted me with their livelihoods as well as their lives.
I grew wealthy beyond measure—counted upon for advice by both politicians in high places and judges sitting in high courts—yet something nagged at the edges of my psyche, like an itch that try as I might I couldn’t quite seem to reach to scratch. I thought about what bothered me and then I thought about it some more. The more I thought about it the farther away a solution seemed.
Finally after many years had passed I gave up the thinking, left my law practice, and buying an old pick up truck I set out for destinations unknown in an effort to capture the freedom of my youth. I thought if I left all my certainties behind I could find the answers that had so far eluded all my efforts at uncovering.
At first I though I was too late. I’d grown fat and full of knowing. I had waited too long to act. The tentacles of the city of dreadful night had wormed their way into my very being. As I headed west into high mountain places I felt like a man returning to the place of his birth. I missed many meals wandering the mountain trails. As my mind stilled the troubles ebbed along with my weight. I became light upon my feet once again; my mind became as clear as the cold streams from which I drank.
I found myself returning to the mystery.
Years later I returned to Alabama passing through on my way somewhere else. I saw how the old shack had been torn down. An immaculate brick home stood there instead. The old hollow once full of trees was now full of new homes. The dirt road was a highway. The old town that once sported a single general store now had a dozen fast food restaurants and a big hotel and neon-lighted casinos dotting its edges.
I thought how all the glitter of the money rolling into the old town had covered up something important, something no one else seemed to notice but me. It was all a lie intended to make the people happy. The real truth of living is in the suffering and in the poverty of pain.
I thought how it is better to live with a sad truth than to live with a happy lie. That which holds a person together is the values in their life. When a person desires happiness they overlook the sorrow that makes up the world. No one desires sorrow but it is the way of things to lose that which we love.
The mystery comes before happiness and sorrow, good and evil; the mystery has never been born; it waits neither patiently nor impatiently for everything to return to it. The wise seek out higher knowing but the mystery is unknown and unborn. The fool seeks to take what is not theirs but the mystery gives freely and asks nothing in return.
Returning is the motion of the mystery. I know by letting go of this, it will return. By curbing my desires and stilling my mind I know all I need will be provided.
Yielding is the way of the mystery. Rather than forcing my way through life I yield to the mystery. Taking and never giving is the way of the fool. Giving and never taking is the way of the wise. The mystery comes before it all.
The names of all things are born of being. Being is born of not-being. Returning to the mystery is the way of the universe.

Yin and Yang

How the petals on the flowers of the plum trees fluttered and turned in the breeze! I cannot help but think of you and the distance that separates us now. We loved the springtime; autumn now has hold of my heart.
She had black hair that shined like spun silk and onyx green eyes and when she spoke her voice was like the music of many waters to my ears. She told me our time together would be too short so I knew from the start that nothing I could do would keep her by my side.
I had yet to learn of not-doing. Being a man I thought I had to bully my way through life; I believed I had to make everyone and everything bend to my will. In time and through the course of knowing many women I gradually learned how wrong I was in my actions.
She wore a tiny smile and nothing I could do or say would ever change it. It was all part of the sadness of the world, like the rattle of skeleton leaves still clinging to the pin-oak trees outside our window in the dead of winter or the bitter smell of pine tree tea boiling deep in the mountains.
I gave her gifts each day thinking I might woo her in that way into staying with me. She accepted each of them with the same sad smile she wore when our lovemaking ended as if she knew she had no choice but to take what I offered.
She made me promise that when she had to go I wouldn’t stop her. I wondered why she would have to leave but she wouldn’t say. I caught the darkness from her words. I thought the worst; I accused her of having another lover. Rather than dignifying my accusations with denial promise me is all that she said. So despite myself I promised.
On the day she left I could have followed but I didn’t. I had always been aggressive but instead I embraced the receptive. It was the first time I'd ever been passive like that; it opened something up that I'd been missing.
I dream of you still; though I've taken other lovers since I've never been quite able to shake the glassy shards of your love from my heart. Sometimes during the quiet of that space in between waking and sleep I think I hear you calling my name. When I listen more closely all I hear is my own sighs.
I understand this is an indulgence, an unnecessary profligacy. Such extravagances lead to insubordination while parsimony leads to meanness. It is better to be mean yet it would have been better still to achieve an accord with my lover. By coming to a concurrence she might never have left me to the poverty of my tears.
These days I am satisfied and composed in my life while I notice those who are mean seem always full of distress. I achieve harmony when I gain by losing for I know I lose by gaining. I combine the forces of yin and yang by carrying yin and embracing yang. I keep the strength of a man and cherish the caring of a woman. In this way I achieve balance.
A man with whom I used to work came to me when his wife left him. I suppose he considered us friends or perhaps he didn't regard us as such; rather he needed someone to talk to and I'd always been a good listener.
I remember how he cursed her; he told me how she had been unfaithful to him; he said that she told him how she wanted to make the marriage work but each time he looked at her he could see the other man reflected in her gaze. I suggested that he close his eyes and talk to her then. I reminded him how empty his bed would feel without her there by his side.
Later I heard they had reconciled though he never spoke to me again except in passing. I imagined that he felt he had shamed himself in front of me by opening up or perhaps he simply had nothing left to say.
Those who are fond of daring and unhappy in their poverty of love will seek to usurp those whom they perceive have more than they do. So will such people should I carry my dislike of them to extremes. Though a person might be possessed of many admirable qualities if they are niggardly and proud those other things are not worth mentioning.
I learn knowing I can never reach my objective. I can find no name for it. Those who are fervid without being righteous, simple but not sincere, stupid and yet never attentive, these people I cannot understand.
No one likes to be orphaned, worthless, or widowed. Yet this is how I describe myself. I came into this world naked, scared, and crying; I will leave it fulfilled, confident, and laughing.
The mystery became one. One became two. Two became three. And three became the world. Becoming one with the mystery these four things I abjure: I draw no foregone conclusions; I form no arbitrary predeterminations, I embrace no obstinacy, and I cultivate no egotism.
I am without knowing; I am possessed of no knowledge. Yet should someone who is empty of answers question me I exhaust my response from the beginning to the end. Having no official employment I have acquired many arts. Though I exert all my ability I cannot follow that which is nameless; though the mystery stands right before me when I seek to grasp it I find no way of holding on.
When the year became cold I finally understood why the cypress and the pine were the last to lose their leaves. Do I not think of you in your distant house? It is the want of the thought of you that is distant; how far away is that?
By embracing strength I sit quietly and unmoving. By embracing compassion I nurture all things. By embracing laughter I will die laughing. This is my only lesson.

Stopping Short

When my children were small they loved to be a part of creating something, anything really. Early one autumn we built a tree house... well, I should say they built it. I was there to supervise but I allowed them to do all the work. They were very slow and meticulous, measuring each board to be cut and then taking forever to cut it. I had a power saw available but power saws cut off fingers very quickly whereas a hand saw if it slips might cause a scratch or abrasion but nothing more serious.
But more than that, I enjoyed seeing the rapt look of attention on their faces as the labor proceeded; I relished seeing the way they worked together as a team... the oldest one doing the measuring, the middle ones doing the cutting, and the youngest toting the materials from the sawhorse to the tree. They worked until they grew tired and then quit to start again the next day. As they walked away I could overhear them planning amongst themselves what to do next.
Once they had assembled enough wood to build the platform that would serve as a foundation they began securing the boards to the tree, again being very deliberate and laborious. The nails they used were long so it took them what seemed like an hour to drive each one. I wanted to take the hammer from their hands to show them the proper way of driving a nail but I told myself the only way they would learn was to do it themselves.
Sitting there watching them I began thinking of all the things I could be doing, more important things. I thought how I could have jumped in with my power tools and done the work in half the time... even a quarter of the time. I was sorely tempted more than once to do just that. But I stopped short, keeping myself apart from them, only offering instruction when they asked for it and making sure no one attempted anything dangerous.
This all happened many years ago and if memory still serves it took several weeks to complete the project. Each afternoon when I arrived home from work the kids would all be waiting for me in the garage, tools in hand and eager to get started on the next phase. Sometimes their mother would hear my car pull into the driveway. She would come out of the house to say leave your father alone for a few minutes; he just got home. But I would see the disappointment begin to blossom in their eyes so I would tell her thanks but we have a job to do, which of course was the only answer she expected.
I'll admit there were some days when I just didn't feel like sitting there watching. I felt as if everything was taking far too long to complete. Couldn't they nail those nails faster? Couldn't they position those boards more quickly? I wanted to brush them aside and say no, this how you do it, and proceed do the work myself with my big bad power tools in order to get it done more efficiently and quickly.
Despite myself I stayed my desires. I literally forced myself to allow them to complete that project on their own. And complete it they did. Though there wasn't a square corner to be found in that tree house by god it was a thing of beauty. They spent many happy years playing in it and now when the grand kids come to visit they play in it. Their parents tell them proudly how they built it all by themselves. I can still see the light of accomplishment shining in their eyes when they tell the story.
Now that I find myself alone again these memories invade my waking moments and lull me into dreams at night, good recollections and bad. My wife along with my love has gone back to that mystery from which we all spring forth. The children live far away and of course they visit when they can and call on the phone but I know they have their own lives.
These days I am a writer. It isn’t something I choose to do; rather I am compelled to it. I'd rather be sitting in front of a television set. I'd rather be making love with a beautiful woman. I'd rather be drinking and gambling at the casino. I stop short of all that.
Instead I write. I witness how others understand only the trifles of the world and nothing of importance. I see how the clever deceive the innocent. Those who are honored with wealth despise those who live in poverty. The strong take advantage of the weak. This is not the way of the mystery.
One day I decided to write a book, a magnificent book, one that encompassed the whole universe. But my ideas were so grandiose I had no idea where to start. The ideas themselves kept coming and coming until they snowed me under. So I kept putting off writing that book until the day everything became clear.
I saw that I did not have the right to decide to write such a book. The book had to write me. What do I mean by a book writing me? I sit here quietly letting the words fill this page of their own accord. I know if I try and force them into being the words will be all wrong.
When I am troubled the words do not come. My mind must be clear like ice. The world is full of trouble so how do I stop being troubled? I stop short. By not allowing the troubles of the world to pollute my heart it is clear like glass.
One day I poured a cup of coffee. I like coffee so being greedy I filled my cup all the way up. Looking out the window at the tree house built so long ago by my children I raised the cup to my lips. When I took a drink, though, the coffee dribbled all over me. I stopped short. I had a realization that led to the clarity I needed to begin writing that book.
If I fill my cup to the brim, look, I spill when I try and drink. If I stop short I do not leave a stain on my shirt. If I sharpen my knife too long on the whetting wheel it grows hot and loses its temper. Therefore the sooner it will blunt. If I do the work intended for others they will never know the joy of completion.
If I seek to gather a great store of silver and gold I will lay awake at night fearful of thieves. If I lock the doors of the fortress inside my heart I kindle a fire of desire that burns unquenched.
If I seek to climb high up the social ladder I have much farther to fall. Those who I have trampled on the way up will rejoice to see my descent.
Therefore I am content to stop before I am filled. I fade back to nothing when my purpose is achieved. I do nothing and yet nothing is left undone.
This is the way of the universe.
So this is what I write.

Water

As a boy I lived close to a raging river. If I kept my bedroom window open at night I could hear the waters tumbling over and over as they roared and rumbled into infinity, for not a half mile from my home an enormous waterfall thundered over a high cliff forming a deep swirling pool of dark water on the rocks below. This river was said to be the king of a hundred streams.
Each spring when the river swelled from the melting snow high in the mountains people who tried to wade or to swim in the treacherous river lost their lives by coming too close to those falls, and being swept over, drowning in the swirling undercurrents in the waters below. If they were lucky they wouldn’t drown; rather they would die brutal deaths by bashing their brains out on the jagged rocks lurking unseen below the surface of the water below the falls. Many times their corpses were never recovered.
But I took great delight in allowing myself to be swept over that waterfall. I would go into a whirl above and come out in a twirl below. The rocks were my companions. I knew them all and they all knew me. The waters called my name and whispered its secrets to me. I could feel the twisting undercurrents and follow their lead so as to make my escape from their grip whereas others only rolled back into the twirl, trapped until they perished. The jagged rocks were soft as feather pillows to my head.
Fearful others would see me hurtling over the falls and think me mad I made it a habit to rise from bed when the sky was just turning pink to go to the river. Early one spring morning while swimming to the shore below the raging waterfall I saw a man with a shaved head and wearing an orange robe standing there by the riverside. When I had pulled myself from the water he approached me speaking words in a strange accent. I thought he came to question me as to why I allowed myself to be swept over the falls but he surprised me by speaking of things I did not know.
He told me how he was but a small stone on a great hill; he said his path was plain and quiet; he was neither overjoyed to be alive nor did he count it a calamity to die. The man told me that what we reckon we know is not so much as what we do not know, that the time since we were born is nothing compared to the time before we were born. He said what can be spoken of in words is the form of things; what can be thought of as ideas is the subtilty of things.
He asked if I had learned the secrets of the water. I nodded. Tell me, he said. But when I opened my mouth to explain the secrets I had learned I discovered I knew nothing. He smiled and said we put into motion the nature set for us by heaven without ever knowing why or how we do it. He asked me if I thought it would be better to die going over the falls or to live while dragging myself through the mud. I said it would be better to die. He laughed again saying that he preferred dragging himself through the mud.
As he walked away he seemed to evaporate into the early morning mist. I wondered who he was, for I had never seen this man before. When I woke still in my bed I realized I'd been but dreaming but I couldn't seem to shake off the man's words. I thought about him for many years after.
In time my courage increased until I used to show off each spring when the river turned into a raging maniac; I believed how others witnessing my feats must have thought I was full of courage and daring. Sometimes a pretty girl would approach me as I emerged from the river dripping wet and touch me on the arm as if making sure what they had seen was real and not an illusion.
Each day more people gathered to watch my performances. I felt small and ashamed at first though as time passed my confidence grew as the people cheered when I succeeded in taming that waterfall. My pride grew until it knew no bounds. Nothing and no one could do what I did—not tadpoles nor frogs, not fish nor humans, not dogs nor lizards—and survive the plunge, and what's more, everyone knew it.
But perhaps it might have hit closer to the truth to say that the people watching me go over that waterfall must have thought I was a bit daft to attempt such reckless acts in the first place; more likely they knew with a certainty that I was as dim-witted as the water itself. They were all just waiting for the day I didn’t come out of the water so they could nod their 'I told you so's' to one another.
One day when I emerged from the twirl below the falls a crowd of people who had watched me go over in a whirl gathered around me. I anticipated their congratulations but instead all of them began haranguing for me to stop. They said their children were talking of emulating me. They were worried for them. But I wouldn’t listen. When I didn’t stop they talked to my parents. They called the police. They alerted prominent government officials. All these authorities berated me over my antics; they ganged up to forbid me to go back into the water above the waterfall.
Finally I promised them all I wouldn't return to wading in the river above the falls. I would no longer allow myself to be swept over. But the pull of the current proved too strong for me to resist. It was all I dreamed of at night. By day I drew pictures of the waterfall filling countless notebooks with my scrawls. Though I knew everyone was right—that going into that river might well one day cost me my life—I couldn’t stay away.
So I waited until the dark of night. I climbed out my bedroom window and going to the river above the falls I would allow myself to be taken away in the swirl. They didn’t understand. I had to be part of that raging river. I had to be swept over the falls; nothing else in life mattered to me but living like I was meant to live... or perhaps like I was meant to die should one precious night I might not emerge in the twirl below.
No one understood.
I moved away from that river years ago yet it is still part of me. That river taught me many lessons I could not have learned anywhere else. Though I haven’t seen that waterfall in many decades it is still my mentor and it remains my strength.
I have become the man of my long-ago dream. I am a small stone on a high hill. I am like water. I live in the world and yet I do not strive to be part of it. Like water I inhabit low places that others reject. I live close to the earth so that my toes might feel the soil under them and I might suffer the sun warming my back. By stilling my thoughts I go deep into my heart leaving desire by the creek side.
I take no initiative to produce either happiness or calamity. I respond to the influences acting upon me and move as I feel the pressure. I act only when obliged to do so. I have discarded wisdom and the memories of the past. By being placid and indifferent I follow the virtue of water.
I deal with others by donning a gentle smile and issuing forth with a pleasant hello. I am a blessing to everyone I meet. My speech is sparse and yet to the point. I treat everyone with equanimity. I do what I say I will do yet I do not act until I know the time is ripe. Like the four seasons I understand by acting at the right time not a single thing is injured.
To sow seeds in autumn is to starve in the spring; to laugh during a dirge is to bring shame on the family. Since I have no quarrel with anyone there is no one to blame.

Rhythm

Growing up in a small town the next door neighbors consisted of a family of three boys being raised by a single woman. Her husband had crashed his car into a tree on his way home from work late one night. The rumor was that he did it on purpose but of course I never spoke of that to the boys or to anyone for that matter.
I remember them mostly on account of the dancing. When she got home from working the woman and her three sons would spend the evenings in their garage dancing together to old-time 40s big-band music. Though they didn’t play the music very loudly their garage faced our house so I could hear the rhythm quite well.
Watching from our front porch I often yearned to join them but they seemed so happy together I was loath to disturb them. Each evening their dancing seemed to improve to the point that their rhythm was a joy to watch. Sometimes I thought I saw them looking my way but they never motioned for me to come over so I just sat there and watched.
I wondered if my mother would have taught me to dance should she have lived, like my neighbor woman taught her sons. I never really got to know my mother. She passed away when I was but a baby; I was too young to remember her though at times I have a passing vision of her laughing at something that no one else finds funny. I've been told by those who did know my mother that she loved mirth, music, and dancing so I like to think she might have showed me that affection should she have lived long enough to do so.
These days I love the music still but I have never learned to dance. Long ago I learned if I sat silently no one noticed me; no one noticed I was alone. I sat there too long reveling in the music never learning to dance.
Sadness and pleasure indicate a degenerate ingredient in the virtue of those who experience them. Joy and anger show a going astray in direction. Love and hatred demonstrate a collapse of quality. For the mind to be free of sadness and sorrow is the perfection of virtue. To be of one mind that does not change is the perfection of quietude. To be conscious of no conflict is the perfection of vacancy.
If I toil too long without rest my body becomes worn out. If I trouble myself with desires and anxious thoughts without rest my spirit becomes worn out. Like water when I am free of admixture my thoughts are clear; when my thoughts are not agitated like water I am level and calm. This is known as the rhythm of heaven.
Sometimes I stay too long. Sometimes I don’t stay long enough. I forget the rhythm of the mystery to dwell in the tempo of the earth. Though these two might be mistaken as the same one comes before the other. One cannot be seen while the other is all that is seen.
Being motherless I looked to the forest for solace and for solitude. Wandering alone on lost paths deep in the mountains I could find no water to drink. Listening with parched throat as I walked through the rock-strewn valleys I could hear the rhythm of water dancing under the stones. I knew the water had to be there. By keeping my eyes on the valley I ignored the source.
Following the rock-covered stream down into the valley I hoped to find a pool of standing water. But I was met with disappointment. I began moving rocks aside hoping to find water underneath. The water seemed so close and yet no matter how many stones I rolled away I couldn’t seem to get to the source.
When I looked up from my task wiping away sweat from my brow I saw the snow glittering on the mountain top. I realized the water I heard under the stones was melting on high. To get to the source I had to forego the valley. By climbing away from what I knew I came closer to the source.
As I lay in slumbers my brain starved for oxygen high in those mountains one bitter and cold January night I dreamed how I danced with a beautiful lady who might well have been my daughter. Our rhythm and our timing were perfect. As the dance ended and she walked away she turned her head just so waving a happy goodbye over her shoulder. I recognized her from her striking the same pose as in an old picture I'd once been given of my mother.
Waking I thought how miraculous it was to see and to dance with my mother who was still a young woman when I had grown so old. I thought of the rhythm of life and the rhythm of death and how the two danced with the mystery, eternally renewing each other along with the world.
Action without thought is a rhythm I feel with my heart and not with my feet. While thinking takes me away from experience action without thought brings me closer to it. When experience comes as a surprise I know I am closer to the mystery. When experience is always new I am the mystery.
The mystery formed before heaven and earth. It is alone and unchanging. It is ever-present and yet always in motion. The mystery is the mother of all things. I do not know its name. I call it the source of experience. For lack of a better word I call it the mystery.
Since the source of experience is mysterious it flows far away and having gone far it returns. I follow the rhythm of the earth. The earth follows the rhythm of heaven. Heaven follows the rhythm of the mystery. The mystery follows what is natural.

Loss

Chapter 1: Loss

On the day my son was born he was so tiny and alive! I marveled at the softness of his skin, his tiny fingers and miniature toes, and the brightness of his eyes. He grew too quickly. I often wonder where all the time went; life is like a river flowing past; no one can keep their eyes trained upon it since it is always moving. It flows away to nowhere never to return.
My son came to me one day. He was still a boy but fast becoming a man. I could tell by the look on his face that he had something on his mind. What happens to those we love when they die, he asked. Do they go to heaven?
I knew why he wondered. A boy in his class at school—his name was Eric—had been killed in a horrific accident while playing in a Little League baseball game. Another boy threw a ball to him when he wasn't ready. The ball struck Eric in the neck. He collapsed. Despite frenetic efforts to revive him the young boy died right there on the field.
I wanted to tell my son that I did not know what happened when we die; I wanted to tell him that I was not dead and only the dead knew the answer to that question. But when I opened my mouth different words emerged.
I said to him that when we die we return to the mystery from which we all come. I explained to him everything dies except that which has never been born. I told him since the earth is alive it too had once been born and one day it too would die.
I told him that though everything passes away there is that which remains. It cannot be named nor can anyone see it. It cannot be touched. It has no taste, no smell. The mystery has never been born and so it will never pass away. We are part of the mystery; nay, we are the mystery.
But I do not understand, father. Doesn't everyone die?
Come for a walk with me, my son. So he did. We walked through the apple orchard and into the forest that grew behind our farm. We spotted a pheasant making its way through the undergrowth, its mottled coloring making it difficult to spot.
I noted to my son how that pheasant had to amble along all day to find nourishment; I said how it must make its way to the creek each morning to drink, putting itself in danger of other predators that might be there as well. If it were in a coop all the pheasant's nourishment would be provided for. It would not be in any danger. Yet were we to make a trap to catch it and carry it home that pheasant would spend the rest of its days trying to escape confinement in order to regain its independence.
I explained that this is the way of the mystery.
My son's face shined as he listened to my words. I thought how precious this small insignificant moment we share is. I imagined him an old man one day explaining the mystery to his son and to his grandson. Looking into his eyes I saw all the generations looking back at me, all those who lived before us and all those who would come after. I thought how important it was that we get it right this time.
I explained to my son that what happened to our loved ones when they passed back to that mystery where we all come from did not matter as much as what happened to those left behind. Those who die had finished with their struggles. Their pain had come to an end. It was the living who had to go on even when it seemed all but impossible.
On the day my son passed away he was so broken and so still. I mourned how I would never again see his fine strong body walking the earth. At his funeral I wanted to get up to tell everyone about the wonderful times we had together. When I stood I could not speak for the lump arising in my throat choking me. Blinking through my tears I gazed out at the gathering of lovers who assembled there to see him off yet I could not see anyone. While they celebrated his life I died along with my son.
Yet I go on.
The earth will one day be a dead empty husk rolling through the darkness of heaven. The sun will no longer shine. The stars will blink out. The rains will stop, the fires will fade, and the winds will cease to blow. None of these things are eternal. How is it possible for me?
What we can point to are but logs consumed by fire but that fire has moved on; we cannot know that it is over or ended.
I follow the mystery. I am at one with the source of experience. I am virtuous and so I experience virtue. But those who lose the way to the source and instead cling to what they know are lost.
When I am at one with the mystery, experience welcomes me. When I am at one with virtue, the virtue is always there. When I am at one with loss, the loss is experienced willingly.
To talk little is natural. If I do not trust enough I will not be trusted.
This is the way of the universe.

Starving

There was a time when I thought I had lost everything that ever meant anything. In my distress I left my home behind in hopes of discovering that which had vanished from my life.
I wandered west until I came to the sea; I could go no farther. Being cold I turned left; I walked south until I reached the lean land of Mexico. In those days it wasn't anything to cross over the border. I walked a good long ways under a warm Mexican sun until I gave in to the call of forgetfulness.
The booze was cheap and strong. I drank too much at a little cantina just outside of Magdalena. I woke the next morning not knowing where I was or how I had come to be there. My pockets were empty. My throat was dry. I was too proud to beg.
Finding myself alone in a strange city and hungry I walked into a Catholic church hoping to find solace and a friend. The building felt familiar; door was unlocked; the custodian greeted me warmly. He spoke in Spanish telling me the executioner was out but he would be back shortly. In the mean time he wondered if I was hungry.
I was starving. The old man went to a stained and wheezing refrigerator and taking out a brown paper sack he handed me a tortilla and a bowl of re-fried beans. I knew it was his lunch but I ate it anyway scooping the beans into the tortilla with my fingers. I was never partial to Mexican food but that lunch was one of the best I'd ever eaten in my life. When I finished I licked my fingers clean while thanking the old man profusely.
A few minutes later the executioner arrived. I could tell by the tone of his voice that he was angry with the custodian for having allowed me entry into the church. The padre sent the custodian out of the room and then he threw me out of the building with a stern lecture not to return lest he call la mantenimiento del orden. I left the town behind to its dust.
Instead of becoming an executioner I was influenced into becoming a custodian.
From the loving example of one man a whole state becomes loving; from one man's courtesies a whole state becomes courteous. At the same time from one man's ambitions and perverseness a whole state may be led to rebellious disorder. Such is the nature of influence.
If the household is rightly ordered then the people of the state may be taught. When a leader loves what the people love and hates what the people hate then they are called a parent to the people. Leaders of families, churches, and states may not neglect compassion or care. If they deviate to mean selfishness they will disgrace not only themselves but those they serve and their house will not stand for long.
If people are under the influence of passion their conduct will be incorrect; they will be the same if they are under the influence of hunger, or under the influence of fond regard, or under the influence of sorrow and distress. When the mind is not present people look but do not see; they hear but do not understand. To cultivate a person depends upon rectifying the mind.
Rome fell because the people were starving. Why were the people starving? The people were starving because the rulers ate up the money in taxes to fund never-ending wars. So the people lost their land and the farmers could no longer grow crops. Therefore the people were starving.
In a household, a church, or a state, pecuniary gain should not be considered to be prosperity but its prosperity should be found in righteousness. When those who preside over households, churches, and states make revenues their chief business they are under the influence of small, mean people. They may consider these people to be good but when such a person is employed by a family, a church, or a state, calamities from heaven and injuries from men will befall it.
Rome fell because the people became rebellious. Why did the people become rebellious? The people became rebellious because the leaders interfered with them too much. The ritual of taxation demanded too great a sacrifice so the people became rebellious.
By gaining the people, the household, the church, and the state are gained. By losing the people, the household, the church, and the state are lost. On this account the leader will first take pains about their own virtue. Possessing virtue will give them the people. Possessing the territory will give them its wealth. Virtue is the root; wealth is the result. If the leader makes the root a secondary object and its result primary they will only wrangle with the people and teach them rapine.
The accumulation of wealth is the way to scatter the people while letting wealth scatter among them is a way of collecting the people. Wealth gotten by improper ways will take its departure by the same. Goodness obtains the decree; the want of it loses it.
Rome fell because the people thought so little of death. Why did the people think so little of death? Because the rulers made too great of demands on their lives, so the people welcomed death. They could no longer see the good for the bad, the right way to go for the wrongs heaped upon them.
By keeping to the center, by finding a pivot point, one comes to see there are always a right and a wrong; there are always a this and a that; these two produce each other. Those who cling too tightly to one and then to the other vacillate back and forth; they have not found their point of correspondency. By exacting more than is fair, by sending away the hungry and by turning out the tired, even the great state of Rome was lost. What chance did I have against the executioner?
Having little to live on, I know better than to value life too highly.