Loss and Revelation
More often than not, the experience of loss feels like an offense. It attacks our sense of self, leaves us feeling empty, and can even paralyze us. Countless people have lost their jobs and are now unemployed. More and more struggle to pay rent and will become homeless. Worse yet, many have lost loved ones. Just yesterday, the wife of a close friend passed away. He told me by phone: “Yesterday I was someone’s husband. Today I am a widow. Really, I don’t know who I am.” Gain and loss can equally define us. But it may be more difficult to let go of things lost than things gained because one’s former job, home, or loved one is hidden from view. Here is another factor that easily gets concealed in the midst of losing: the felt need to salvage a sense of “I,” such as when the thought recurs, “I am a widow.” Loss can be arresting, and the urge to keep going often makes us forget what it’s like to not know who we are.
From the perspective of Zen, there is just gain and loss, but no self who gains or loses. My bereaved friend came up against this when he said, “I don’t know who I am.” While loss may feel like a personal assault, at the same it can expose something that the experience of acquisition does not: the transparency of the “I.” Japanese has a word to describe this experience: satori. Not unlike an apocalypse, “satori” refers to a catastrophe that occurs through a profound negation of one’s sense of self. In Zen, we train for just such an opening into nothingness, since this experience awakens or reveals our true nature. While this realization cannot be engineered, we can create the conditions for it. Through persistent effort, careful planning, and the growth of trust within a community of practitioners, it is possible to establish a safe space wherein one might remember who one is just as one gets stripped of their usual identifications.
What has been lost for you during this time? What has been revealed? How can training in Zen help to restore equilibrium in our environments while still holding these questions open for inquiry?
