November 2026

TEACHINGS

The following Dharma Talk was given by Keely Rakushin Garfield on September 27, 2026. To see the whole talk on YouTube, go here.

No Trace on the Water:

Love, Loss, Continuing Endlessly
 

Good morning,

My name is Rakushin, and I offer a warm welcome to everyone here in the zendo and in the online zendo. This morning, I want to talk about what is on my mind and in my heart following the recent passing of my mother. Her name is on the altar here at the zendo, and I am grateful for that and for all of you who make my practice possible.

There is a story about the musician Paul Simon—how after the death of his family dog, he was bereft and struggled to understand his immense feelings of grief and loss. Sitting in a Chinese restaurant in New York, he saw a dish of chicken and egg on the menu, macabrely titled “Mother and Child Reunion.” Something stirred in his heart, and he wrote a song about grief, love, and ultimately, mystery. In the song he intones, “And the course of a lifetime runs over and over again.”

Over and over again, trying to understand the world, rolling it around in our minds until it loses its shape and substance. “Ours is not to reason why; ours is but to do and die.” This idiom, based on a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, implies that it is not our job to question or wonder, but simply to go along, comply, and perish. When things are going well, it seems easier to just go with the flow. But when we are suffering and dragged out into uncharted waters, the need to make sense of things exerts a strong pull. We build conceptual bridges to span the gap in our experience, trying to reach through the murk to understand and be understood.

After my son was born prematurely and we brought him home, he had colic, which meant that he never slept at all—which meant that I never slept at all. Moving through the thick, gray delirium of sleep deprivation one morning, my mother, who was visiting from England, greeted me with a reprimand: “What? You can’t say good morning?” In that instant, my mind latched onto injury and a verdict was formed: She will never understand. She will never understand me or anything about my life. I held that grudge for decades. Until she died, when right away I realized it didn’t matter. For a moment, I broke through the bamboo node and moved effortlessly through the hollow stalk. Maybe understanding and misunderstanding both miss the point.

Last week, I took some time off to go lick my wounds and went to the ocean in time to see the whale migration. I will never know what it is to be a humpback whale breaching the ocean—launching sixty thousand pounds of my massive body into the air and crashing back into the sea, sending a concussive boom for miles underwater, announcing my presence. I watch from the shoreline as the moon rises and the whales go by. This is how I know the world.

And anyway, how could my mother understand? Mine was a C-section birth, and I was immediately removed to the nursery, where I learned to cry myself to sleep and nurse from a bottle of beige powdered milk while my mother slept soundly in the recovery ward. The mother and child reunion had been undone. Skin-to-skin contact is one way we can know the world. On the beach, the sand between my toes reminds me I am here and that I am also made of dirt. I watch two whales breaching the water together and rubbing necks—the equivalent of a whale hug or handshake. And then two dolphins swimming alongside each other, the rise and fall of their slippery body awareness perfectly synchronized. Oh, the mother and child reunion is only a motion away . . .

In Case 16 of the Blue Cliff Record, “Jingqing’s Man in the Weeds,” a monk asked Jingqing, “I am breaking out; I ask the Teacher to break in.” Jingqing said, “Can you live or not?” The monk said, “If I weren’t alive, I’d be laughed at by people.” Jingqing said, “You too are a man in the weeds.”

Traditionally, the chick inside the shell represents the student’s striving for enlightenment, while the mother hen outside is the teacher offering skillful guidance. In this case, however, the student is caught up worrying about outside opinions and is still stuck in the weeds of concepts and mental entanglements. Perhaps you will laugh at me. You will think my talk is too personal, too fishy, not enough, or maybe too much. But without any true skin in the game, our realization is dead in the water.

In other translations, this koan is known as “Jingqing Pecks the Egg.” There is a common misconception that a mother hen helps her chick hatch by pecking the shell from the outside while the chick simultaneously pecks from the inside. In reality, a hen’s beak is so strong that doing this would likely crush the egg and harm the chick. Instead, the chick does 100% of the physical work from within. The mother simply cleans away loose shell fragments and “talks” to the egg with soft clucking to encourage the process. Cluck, cluck, cluck.

This from the commentary on the koan:

“Chick and mother hen do not know each other; who is it that breaks in and breaks out together? Although the mother hen breaks in, she cannot cause the chick to break out; although the chick breaks out, she cannot cause the mother hen to break in. Neither is aware of the other. At that moment of breaking in and breaking out, who is it that breaks in and breaks out together?” 

Neither is aware of the other! It is a startling observation. How much closer can you get to another human than being born of them? There is undeniable skin in the game. Yet, looking at my mother’s life and my own, I see that our paths were literally and figuratively, oceans apart. I can only marvel at the way life, over and over again, offers us all our share, and sometimes more than our share, of joy and suffering.

When my mother was a child, she lived through the London Blitz during World War II. She sheltered alongside her mother in the Underground to evade the bombs. The British government issued children between the ages of two and five a “Mickey Mouse” gas mask—lightweight and made of bright red rubber with blue rubber trim around the goggles. Despite the nickname, it did not feature mouse ears or a cartoon face, but it got the job done. During COVID, I worked at a hospital in the city and donned my PPE and N95 respirator dutifully and gratefully. I still have scars on my face where the metal of the mask dug into my skin. Lest I forget. But I don’t know what it was like for my mother sleeping in a train tunnel with hundreds of strangers while the terrible noise of war raged around her, and she was not on the hospital units with me in the pandemic and cannot know how I felt. It doesn’t matter.

We are each born alone and die alone. Notwithstanding the company of sangha and all the myriad things, zazen itself is a journey we make alone. The verse from the koan contains this seemingly dark vision, but it speaks to me of a deep well of compassion and the possibility of continuous renewal:

“From remote antiquity, the darkness is vast and boundless; it fills the channels and clogs the gullies. No one understands.”

No one understands. My mother has died, and yet she is right here. Swimming in the ocean, I watch my hands reach forward, sweep out to the side, and gather in toward my heart. I see my tanned hands—hands that are not young anymore—and suddenly I recognize them. They are my mother’s hands. To say they are also my grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s hands feels too remote, too romantic; I can’t reach that far back into history. But when I close my eyes, I can clearly see my mother’s hands as they were at the end of her life: contorted by arthritis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and old age, the fingers curled backward toward the palms into tight, knobbed fists.

All her life, Mum drank Coca-Cola and coffee, using a straw when it became impossible for her to hold a cup. When she was dying, my sister moistened mum’s dry mouth with Coca-Cola on a sponge, not ice chips, as was mum’s preference. After she died and I returned to my life, I sat with friends in a fancy French café and ordered coffee. The waiter brought me a cup of coffee with a straw—a paper straw wrapped in orange and white stripes, exactly like the straw my mother used. Mother and child reunion is only a motion away.

As I drank my coffee, my mind went back to the beach and I thought of a humpback whale calf’s “straw” mouth—how it curls its tongue into a tight, straw-like shape against the roof of its mouth to funnel its mother’s rich milk directly into its body, keeping the salty seawater out. Moving through the waves, these are my mother’s hands pushing the water forward and sweeping it out to the side. She is here in my body, in this body of water, and she is not bedbound anymore! Reaching, clearing away, gathering toward the heart—no reunion possible because there never was any separation.

In Shobogenzo: Kai-In-Zammai (“Ocean Mudra Samadhi”), Dogen writes: “Buddhas and ancestors continuously maintain ocean mudra samadhi. While swimming in this samadhi, they expound, realize, and practice. Traveling through water includes journeying along the ocean bottom. This is called ‘coursing along the bottom of the deepest ocean.’” Dogen goes on to tell us that the Buddha said: “Past moments and future moments do not arise in sequence. Past elements and future elements are not in alignment. This is the meaning of ocean mudra samadhi.” And so, because there is no barrier, no alignment or misalignment, I say, good morning, Mum. No one need understand.

When my daughter was born, the midwife took the baby, covered in all her juiciness, and placed her directly on my warm heart. My baby craned her neck to find my eyes and wriggled her way up my belly to my breast. Now my mother has died, and my grown daughter (where did the baby go?) comes to join me on the beach. I hug her, skin to skin. Mothering is hard. I pecked from inside the shell hoping the teacher—my mother—would help me out. But my mother was born in an era where birth was clean, clinical, and cute, and children were seen and not heard. So, looking for advice elsewhere, I opened Mothering magazine. Modern tips and age-old wisdom sprang from its breezy pages. A central tenet advocated in its articles was to never be the one to end a conversation or leave off a hug with your child. Let them leave first. I don’t know if my children ever noticed. But now I remember the countless long-distance phone calls with my mum over the years, and I think I know why she never hung up first. Here is what I have come to think of as good mothering advice from Dogen: “Reflect on the words continue endlessly and let them continue endlessly. Allow the moments of appearing and disappearing to continue and discontinue as the life stream of buddha ancestors.”

When someone dies, they cease to be a “person” and are immediately transformed into a body. From Shobogenzo: “The myriad things stop breathing when they don’t function anymore means that even if myriad things do or do not stop breathing, they do not remain as they are.” Dogen tells us that even if corpses are corpses, there is a function that goes beyond not breathing. Let me say that again: A function that goes beyond not breathing. What is my mother’s function now that she has stopped breathing? What will I do while I am above ground and still breathing? What about you? At the end of her life, apart from a few knickknacks, my mother had very few possessions, no business to attend to, and no important papers to sort through. My mother’s only regret was that she did not fulfill her dream of becoming a dancer but since I have spent more than fifty years dancing myself, perhaps we can say that all is not lost. “Coming, going, the waterbirds don't leave a trace, don’t follow a path.” I hope, I will leave no trace of regret. 

Back at the beach, I am deep in the shallows. The ocean tastes salty, and the constant waves knock me around, but I am leaning in. Later, my daughter and I walk over the rocks at the point and admire a seal popping her head in and out of the water. Harbor seal pups keep track of their mother’s whereabouts in the water through hydrodynamic detection, sensing subtle currents to ascend for oxygen and swiftly rejoin them underwater. I am looking for her—my mother—above and below. Before she died, I asked her how she wanted to be remembered. Without hesitation, she said, “As a good person.” I have decided that walking on eggshells in this lifetime is for the birds. Dogen offers another way: “When brightness arises, meet it with brightness; when darkness arises, meet it with darkness.”

And still, it is hard to fathom that my mother is gone. Fathom being the operative word, since from its root meaning “to spread out or embrace,” it has evolved to mean wrapping your mind around something or understanding it deeply. In days of yore, because an average adult man’s outstretched arms span roughly six feet, sailors adopted the word as a unit of measurement. They used weighted “fathom lines” dropped off the side of boats to measure the depth of the water. Just as sailors used fathom lines to “get to the bottom” of the ocean, people began using the word metaphorically. Getting to the bottom of things may take me a while, but as always, I take heart from Dogen who affirms: “Attaining the way and entering realization does not necessarily require extensive learning or explanation.” Cluck, cluck, cluck.

As a chaplain, I have facilitated many morgue visits, ushering families into strange rooms to say their final goodbyes, but being on the other side was humbling. It was important to me to see my mother’s body one last time. She was laid out in a shiny white gown; her gnarled hands seemed very small resting on her belly on top of a photograph of my hopeless father and a single red rose. Human beings lack a sense for wetness, inferring it instead through an awareness of pressure and temperature. This is why it is sometimes hard to tell if clothes are wet or just cold. Resting my lips against her forehead, my mother’s skin was icy and damp and tasted slightly salty. Skin to skin, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. No distance between us. Just cold, salty reality. Dogen expresses it like this: “Encountering the buddha face and the ancestor face is nothing other than fully recognizing myriad things as myriad things.”

I will leave you with this commentary from the koan:

“The chick breaks out, the mother hen breaks in—

When the chick awakens, there is no shell.

Chick and hen both forgotten,

Response to circumstance is unerring.

On the same path, chanting in harmony,

Through the marvelous mystery, walking alone.”

One day, I will put my mother’s ashes in the great ocean, leaving no trace.

Ocean Mudra Samadhi…

“The whole boat is empty; it returns full of moonlight.”

Good morning, Mum.

 

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VILLAGE ZENDO DECEMBER SALON

SAVE THE DATE: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4

  Join Sal Kenzen Randolph and Bonnie Friedman for a reading of Kenzen’s forthcoming book The Ordinary: An Account in 72 Seasons followed by a conversation.

The Ordinary is a book of 365 paragraphs structured according to the seventy-two Japanese microseasons, forming a kind of intimate almanac of the calendar year. Set in the city landscape of New York, The Ordinary maps the movements of everyday mind as it freshly responds moment by moment to sights and sounds, memory, imagination, dreams, myth, poetry, art, films, pop songs, and Zen writings. 



Sal Randolph is an artist and writer and is the author of The Uses of Art, a memoir of encounters with works of art. She is a priest at the Village Zendo and has taught seminars on attention at Bennington College, Princeton University, and the School of Radical Attention.



Bonnie Friedman is the author of Writing Past Dark, named one of the best books for writers by Poets & Writers and The Center for Fiction. Her most recent book of nonfiction, Surrendering Oz, was longlisted for the PEN Award in the Art of the Essay. Her debut novel Don't Stop was published by Europa Editions this past spring.
 

 

TRUE EXPRESSION

Creative offerings from the Sangha
 

Immigrant Detention: Things That Must Be Said

Cynthia Gyoko Mellon

I live ten minutes by car from the Delaney Hall Immigrant Detention Center in Newark, New Jersey. The immigrant jail (or concentration camp, as we call it) is located in a highly polluted, industrialized section of Newark, next door to the county prison. Immigrants have been held at Delaney Hall during several previous U.S. Administrations. However, in 2023, after years of effort, immigrant rights activists in New Jersey, many of whom are connected to faith organizations, succeeded in getting the center closed. The City has made it clear that it does not want the federal government imprisoning immigrants in Newark. The reopening of Delaney Hall by the current Trump administration as a jail for immigrants—the vast majority of whom have committed no crime and who have not passed through any judicial process—is a source of pain and conflict for the wider community, as well as those more directly affected. 

Delaney Hall can hold up to 1,000 people. At the moment, there are around 800 people being held there. Rotation in and out of the prison is ongoing, with people frequently being moved to centers in other states, usually Louisiana or Texas (where laws around prisons are known to be more lax than in New Jersey). Some get deported or opt for self-deportation. Many other people are released because they should never have been held there in the first place, while others get out temporarily on a bail of around $7,500. There are currently between 212 and 225 active detention centers of this type in the U.S. 

The promise to jail and deport immigrants was a cornerstone of the Trump electoral campaign, and the idea seems to have been attractive to a lot of voters. While the mass deportation of immigrants was presented to the public as a program to deport people who had committed crimes, in practice, what is taking place is a dragnet in which anyone who can be visually construed to be an immigrant can be taken away and locked up, without a warrant and without due process.

Those who live at a distance from where immigrant detention (we call it “kidnapping”) is taking place may not be aware of the scope and cruelty of the program. For those of us who live in, and are part of, immigrant communities, the abuse is far too evident. Not long ago, I witnessed fully outfitted ICE agents, wearing face masks, take away a Latin American immigrant in front of my house. I ran out on the front porch and started screaming “fascists!” at the top of my lungs. The ICE agents looked at me and carried on. The man went quietly (which is not always the case). I have since learned that agents drive around my neighborhood, grabbing people who “look” undocumented. People’s hands and feet are chained to their waist, and they are loaded into a van. The racial profiling of this practice could not be more obvious. 

The cruelty with which the program is carried out continues to expand in new ways. Like the other immigrant detention centers, Delaney Hall is run by a private prison corporation—in this case, The GEO Group. The company has a 2-billion-dollar contract with the federal government to run Delaney Hall, but conditions inside the prison are deplorable. Food is inadequate and, at times, inedible. The water is often visibly dirty or has a bad smell. There are few opportunities to shower, and people cannot control the water temperature. These are only a few of the punishing situations the incarcerated people face. Medical care is practically non-existent or is being irresponsibly handled. Four people have died over the last year, all of them from lack of medical attention inside the jail. 

Since people in the prison can barely survive on the food provided, families are encouraged to buy a “commissary card” for their locked-up loved ones. This is a card that people pay for online and add money to as it gets spent. The incarcerated people use it to buy things like coffee or instant soup or bottled water from the vending machines in the prison. The machines are owned by GEO, and the prices are comparable to what one pays for similar items at an airport. GEO is actively making a profit off the people it incarcerates. Families must also buy their loved ones a replenishable card so that they can make phone calls. It is impossible to call out from the jail without one. 

The Radical Hospitality Zone

In this current cycle, immigrant rights supporters have been organized and active in New Jersey for at least two decades. Well-informed, disciplined work has been carried out by groups that emerged through faith-based practice and human rights defense, and through organizations founded and led by immigrants themselves. For years, these groups have fought the exploitation and criminalization of immigrants. They have become adept at working both through and outside the government system. They have cultivated relationships with elected officials and the media. Some have deep knowledge and skill at navigating the complex systems that undergird immigration policy in this country.  

As soon as Delaney Hall reopened, these groups showed up to bear witness and lay the groundwork needed to provide support for the incarcerated people and their families. 

Delaney Hall is an improvised, badly-run facility, lacking even the basic amenities found in prisons where people convicted of crimes serve their sentences. Both women and men are being held at Delaney Hall, but the vast majority on the inside are men who were nabbed on their way to or from work, or at the workplace itself. Often, it is the primary breadwinner who is locked up, which has created grave financial and emotional problems for their families. 

Visiting a person being held at Delaney Hall presents real challenges for the families of the detained. Visitors are required to arrive at least an hour in advance of a stipulated time slot, and they are forced to wait standing in the open air in all weathers. No provision has been made for visitors to wait inside the facility, even though there is room there for them to do so. In addition, GEO imposes a stringent dress code for visitors, which was put in place without advance warning. Family members, some of whom traveled long distances to see their loved ones, were not allowed into the facility because they did not conform to the dress requirements (the rules of which include “no sandals, no crocs, no high heels, no sleeveless blouses, no hoodies, no logos, nothing the color blue” and on and on).

One of the earliest volunteer interactions with the community took place when a man was not allowed in to see his son because he was wearing sandals on a hot day. A volunteer simply swapped shoes with the man. She wore his sandals till he came out from the visit. From that moment, the Compliance Clothing project was born. Volunteers collect donated clothing and shoes of all sizes and keep them on hand for visitors to use. This is an ongoing activity that takes place every day. Volunteers take the clothes home, wash them and bring them back to be used by the next group of visitors. 

After becoming aware of the lack of consideration for visiting families, a supporter in Newark sent over a large tent for the growing volunteer base to use. This tent has become the center of the Radical Hospitality Zone, where visitors of all ages are hosted every day by the volunteer groups. In the tent, there are always hot and cold drinks, snacks, chairs for people to sit on while they await their visitation time slot, and toys and craft materials for the children. 

A large volunteer corps has formed, providing needed services and support for the families. Every day, a donated free lunch and dinner are available to all visiting families and volunteers. GEO does not provide bathrooms for visitors (who are sometimes there for many hours) so the Hospitality Zone now has portable bathrooms, paid for by an unknown source (I’ve heard rumors that it is a union). At some point, a generator appeared (also donated) so there is light in the tent, and a fan on hot days. People and groups from all over provide donations of food, diapers to give to families, and other needed items. At times, a visiting nurse provides on-site medical attention for families. An entire community has come into being at the Radical Hospitality Zone. 

Given the economic hardship the families are facing, Radical Hospitality has mobilized resources to provide take-home bags of non-perishable pantry items so that people can feed their families. Gift cards for supermarkets are also frequently available. 

Locating loved ones who have been scooped up by the system can be difficult, so volunteers help with that as well. Importantly, there are people on hand who can help families find legal advice, or help them navigate the system for putting up a bond to gain a detained person’s release (at least until they get called before a judge). And there are nearly always people around who can provide a ride to help a visiting family get home safely. Sometimes that person is me.

My father came from Mexico. He was brought to the United States by his mother. My grandmother remained undocumented her entire life, living below the radar. My father gained citizenship when he enlisted in the army (this is no longer automatic). I know that the fear of deportation is very real, and can result in long-term poor mental health. My last name is an alias.

I am fluent in Spanish, so part of the work I do at Delaney Hall is to provide translation for whoever needs it. While there are many bilingual native Spanish speakers where I live, many people would be putting themselves at risk if they were to frequent the detention center. So I do it, along with a handful of other people with language skills. We help the other volunteers communicate with the families, and occasionally we help families communicate with the guards in the lead-up to visiting hours. Roughly 98 percent of those being held at Delaney Hall are from countries of Latin America. 

I find the work at the detention center to be both demanding and absorbing. We spend our time responding to each family’s needs in the face of constantly changing circumstances, while observing what we can of goings-on inside the detention center itself. Because so many people spend so much time at Delaney Hall, a community has grown up around the practices I have described here. There is a family support group, and people greet and accompany each other in different ways. One woman decided to hold her child’s first birthday at the Radical Hospitality tent. (The baby was born while the father was being detained.) Volunteers decorated the tent and people celebrated with cupcakes. 

People are continually being released from detention and basically left on the street without resources. Releases can happen at any time of the day or night. Radical Hospitality provides Uber rides so that released people can get to their homes. Often, the released people are not in good psychological shape, so volunteers spend time debriefing with them.

Once when I ended a volunteer shift at 9:00 pm and was helping to close up the tent for the night, a man appeared who had committed to spending the night at the prison gate in order to receive and support people who would get released. Because we needed to lock up the tent, he would not even have the resources we have access to during the day. We left him alone in that desolate, not-very-safe spot. I would call his solid commitment “not sparing the dharma assets.”

Different faith congregations show up at the center, and fairly often, religious services are held at the gates. 

Recently, it has been proposed that a multi-faith chaplaincy program be formed—one that would include non-clerical volunteers who could visit inside the detention center. I attended an initial meeting about this idea and have been invited to be part of a training that will take place in January 2027. I told the organizer of the project that they should include Buddhist and Muslim representatives, and my suggestion was enthusiastically accepted. 

What I have covered here is only a sampling of the learning that goes on at Delaney Hall. I will be glad to share more and answer any questions people have.

For those who may want to donate to the work of the Radical Hospitality Zone, I suggest donating to the fund to buy grocery store gift cards for the struggling families. See links below.

Your donations help make our work possible.

Grocery store gift cards are still at the top of the list of needs.  The best cards to give are Shoprite and Stop & Shop. The easiest denominations for us to deal with are $25 and $50. You can bring gift cards to the radical hospitality tent during visitor support hours or donate to the gift card fund here Givebutter.com/GroceryCards

Helping with legal fees & bonds- People are able to free themselves from detention when they can access the legal system. SOMA Community Cares is an organization that has been helping to pay legal fees and bonds for our neighbors for the past few months. If you would like to contribute to their fund you can follow this link givebutter.com/dhfreethemall

You can also donate to Envision Freedom Fund which pays up to $10,000 toward bonds by following this link.
 

 

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Winter Sesshin:

Finding Refuge in Community

Garrison Institute – Garrison, NY

December 26 – January 1

The Village Zendo’s year-end retreat is a chance to step out of ordinary life and enjoy deep silence and contemplation at the turning of the year. Our schedule is serious (with plenty of zazen meditation) but also spacious, with time to enjoy the beautiful grounds and nearby trails. Dharma Talks are given daily, and there is opportunity to meet individually with teachers. Delicious vegetarian meals are offered buffet-style. If you have put off doing a residential retreat, or felt intimidated to try one, this is a wonderful retreat to attend. Come and join the Village Zendo sangha as we greet the new year with clear minds and open hearts.

Registration closes Sunday, December 21 at 4 pm (Eastern US Time).

Full Retreat: December 26 to January 1st

Half Retreat: December 26 to December 29

 

Fees and registration:

To attend Winter Sesshin, registration and payment must be completed separately on both Village Zendo’s website and Garrison Institute’s website.

Registration on Garrison Institute’s website will cover room and board, and those fees are kept entirely by Garrison.

Registration on Village Zendo’s website will cover costs, overhead, and program fees for the Village Zendo, and those fees are kept entirely by Village Zendo.

Register with the Village Zendo using the form here. Upon registering, you will be emailed a link to complete registration and payment on Garrison Institute’s website.

Questions? Please contact registrar@villagezendo.org.
 

Scholarships are available for those who need financial assistance to attend Village Zendo retreats. Requests for assistance should be directed to Ryotan Roshi at scholarships@villagezendo.org.
 

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REFLECTIONS
 

The following is an excerpt from a piece written in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. To read the original in full, go here.

Lessons from a (Mostly) Good Dog: #11, Be Concerned
 

By Taylor Plimpton 

I imagine that, if you’re anything like me (or my dog), you, too, have found yourself beset with anxiety as of late. There are concerns, no doubt—we each have our list, a seemingly endless one of things that aren’t right in the world, and in us. Matters that weigh on us, that sit in the crease of our foreheads and dig.

As a practicing Buddhist, I wonder sometimes: Am I even allowed to feel this way? Isn’t my existence supposed to be one of resounding inner peace and equanimity? After all, at the heart of the teachings is an ultimate (and ultimately reassuring) truth—that we are all Buddhas at heart, and that the Great Buddha Way is all around us and within us. Where in this grand, immaculate vision of Oneness is there room for concern, worry, doubt? Indeed, to allow ourselves to feel these things almost seems like a betrayal of our faith, and of its deepest Truth: that everything is perfect just as it is. 

Despite her occasional expressions of concern, I should make it clear that Brooklyn herself seems well-attuned to this more “enlightened” absolute perspective too—as are dogs in general. Most of her furry existence is spent content, at ease, lazing about, nothing to do, nowhere to go, everything just fine, just as it is. Oh, and it’s an enviable existence, to live this way, with not a seeming care in the world—her muscles soft, her heart open, her mind calm and present and anxiety-free. Nothing weighs on her. She drifts off easily, guiltlessly, into a midday nap. 

Is this how we should be living too—so rooted in the truth at the heart of reality that we drift along through life, imperturbable? Yes, one might assume that this is the highest Buddhist ideal—maybe even the ideal no matter your faith—to be so at One with everything, so flush with inner peace, that nothing bothers you at all, but I’m not so sure that’s the deal. That’s not enlightenment. If anything, that’s just being checked out.

So let me just go ahead and reassure you: It’s OK to be concerned. With everything that’s going on in the world right now, you should be concerned. (Indeed, if you aren’t, something might be a little wrong with you.) 

Of course, concern on its own is not enough. To sit around all day worrying is precisely as useful as sitting around all day basking in Oneness: not very. Indeed, much like that root recognition of our interconnectedness, it’s really valuable only insofar as it urges us to action. Thus the question becomes: So, you’re concerned. What are you going to do about it? 

As Zen Peacemakers founder, Bernie Glassman, makes clear, we have many options for direct engagement. We can volunteer, we can protest, we can sign petitions, we can donate money or resources to a reputable cause or organization, we can call our representatives. Most immediately, on Tuesday, November 3, here in the United States, we can also vote—a great privilege and honor. The point is, one way or the next, we can make ourselves heard, express ourselves and our concerns, get out of our heads and into the world, where a change, a difference, can be made. 

Of course, it’s fine to have concerns—but we must not allow them to drive us to despair. Interestingly, actually engaging with the world’s problems may be part of what keeps us from becoming debilitated by them and succumbing to bitterness and gloom. After all, anxiety that doesn’t lead to action—the kind that circles endlessly through the mind like a snaggle-toothed shark in an aquarium—that kind of worrying is not only unhealthy but also pointless. There’s little use in doomscrolling all day and losing yourself in one horror after the next.

Here, too, Brooklyn acts as a kind of model. Sure, she recognizes potential threats—dogs walking down the street (who the hell do they think they are?), mailmen approaching the front door (what the hell does he think he’s doing?)—and she barks like a maniac to express her apprehension, but when these perils have passed, she returns to a state of relative calm. Or, to put it most plainly: Things concern her, she responds to them, she barks herself clean, she moves on. 

It seems my dog knows better than to drape herself in unending anguish. Her worries do not haunt her the way they so often do for us—for the rest of the day, into the night, and on into the following morning, ad infinitum. And part of her secret, I think, is the simple fact that because she acts on her concerns so wholeheartedly, she is then able to release them fully too. 

The other part of Brooklyn’s secret? She knows the benefit of rest, and of play, and of love. It is OK to be concerned, she knows, but it is also OK to not be concerned sometimes. To set all that aside for a moment. Lie about in the sun. Wrestle with her stuffed toy flamingo. Wag her tail. (And, oh, as many reasons as there are to be concerned, there are even more reasons to wag your tail.) 

Point is, Brooklyn finds a balance with it all, somehow: Out the window, she barks viciously at the crumbling world, deeply concerned for her family and all living things. Later, she takes a nap, or has a cuddle. Sometimes she even makes a purring sound that expresses a deep and unwavering faith: All is well in the world.

How are both those realities possible? How can everything be perfect exactly as it is when at the same time there is such immense and obvious suffering in the world? And how can Brooklyn somehow attend to both those perspectives so fully, and with such conviction?

Perhaps most importantly, is it possible for us humans to do the same?
 

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Sangha. Explore these various ways of staying connected and

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  Editor: Taylor Plimpton

Editor Emerita: Nina Shuka Klippel

Design & Production: Howard Thoresen 

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