By Michael Fayne
“Life always gives us exactly the teacher we need at every moment. This includes every mosquito, every misfortune, every red light, every traffic jam, every obnoxious coworker, every illness, every moment of joy or depression, every addiction, every piece of garbage, every breath. Every moment is the guru.” Charlotte Joko Beck
Charlotte Joko Beck (1917-2011) was an esteemed American Zen teacher who led sanghas in California and in the Southwest. This statement, which appears in her book “Everyday Zen: Love and Work,” is a particularly concise expression of a truth we all aspire to realize in our practices and lives. It is one facet of the concept of non-duality – that any experience we face, any situation we find difficult, no matter how minute or massive, can be regarded in its fundamental nature as simply a call. It invites us to let go of yet one more of the inexhaustible desires and urges us to slip free just a bit more from the stranglehold that our sense of a separate self has on us. Every moment a teacher.
Joko Beck in this quote speaks of small daily “teachers.” But our life these days presents us with some monstrous and terrifying teachers – ongoing war, the erosion of human respect and decency among so much of our leadership, and of course the ever-looming reality of climate destruction. (As I write this, one more “unprecedented, record-breaking” hurricane rages across the Southeastern U.S.)
However, during our most recent climate-oriented Engaged Buddhism meeting (held each 4th Wednesday), we listened to a podcast conversation in which climate activist Christiana Figueres highlights three climate change trends. The first is the pervasive deterioration of the climate; the second is the ever-accelerating development of technological innovations to combat it; and the third is humanity’s slow but steady transformation toward being a species that sees itself as not separate from the natural world.
This is not to view our climate catastrophe through rose-colored glasses. It may well be that nothing averts destruction in the long run. But in light of the truth-seeking that brings us all together as a sangha, Ms. Figueres’ third trend is pointing toward a slow movement away from the egoistic and materialistic illusions that have driven our species for centuries, toward a dawning awareness of the not-separate truth of our nature.
This is the work that life presents us with in every moment: to realize, not as an intellectual concept but as a visceral and lived truth, that there is no separation. We are all every sentient being, we are all earth and trees and oceans and sky and all the vastness of space, and every grain of sand and every set of bones in every grave. (How easy to say, how seemingly impossible to truly feel.)
May all beings attain, and live, this wisdom.
May we not squander the opportunities for insight that tragedy can bring.