Dance me Home

Sometimes I can’t hear the music,

Then it resounds like a gong.

But whether I hear it or not,

The dance goes on.

Dancing through the cold and pain,

Still dancing: Still, yet dancing.

I yearn for you.

Your dance is sunlight peering through the mist,

And calm silent solitude descends.

Here we are, dancing home.

My heart skips a beat,

Like mine to yours dances,

Though we may never meet,

I feel your glances.

Sometimes I can’t hear the music,

Sometimes it throngs.

But whether or not I perceive it,

The dance goes on.

I wrote this poem whilst living in a Zen community in California.  One of the visitors asked a priest a question.  He said, “Sitting behind you during Zazen (meditation), is terrible because- you never move.  I feel like I am moving all the time.  How do you stay still for so long?”  

She replied, “It may look as though I don’t move, but believe me, I do”.

I realised then what meditation shows.  This body is a process.  It is constantly moving and shifting, and no matter how hard we try we cannot make it stay still, even for a moment. Anything living moves constantly.  Even those things we consider not to be alive, like rocks or mountains are eroding- although it’s slow enough to not be easily perceptible.  There is a sort of living dance which never stops.  However still I get I cannot stop this movement. 

Most of the time I am happy enough with the buzzing, shifting process, but then there is a deep longing for a love I have never known.  When this longing arises I will do anything, go anywhere to attain the love of my desire.  I search for a focus for it; something to pin it on.  That unattainable man, that teacher, that job I never found or the money I never had, or that ultimate experience I almost reached.  There are times where in my memory I think I had it- but the truth is I never did, and I always longed for it.  The wise people I meet or whose books I read tend to say that if I sit very still, and look inside then I will find what I’ve always longed for.  I do try to do that.  I try to be content with what is here now and then just sit still in a calm and accepting way, but the restlessness that arises is very often overwhelming, and there’s doubt which says, “nothing will ever change, you will always be alone, broke, longing for something.”  This darkness drives me to distraction, and I go watch a film, eat something, call someone, read something, make something- do anything to alleviate the pain of this restless disturbance.  Usually the things it drives me to are not those things which are helpful for my life:  I won’t usually then go and do some exercise, wash the dishes and look for a job.  I will instead do the things which give temporary relief but in the long term cause trouble.  I’ll feed my addictions- to sensory stimulation.  No matter how many addictions I ‘give up’, there are still more underneath.  The obvious ones like drugs, smoking, alcohol can be relinquished quite easily, and there will be help with these ones from the outside.  There are still sensory addictions to delicious food and drink, to music, to sexual and sensual stimulation, to beautiful images, to excitement, to sleep, to games, to interesting conversation, to being needed, and so on.  These may seem harmless and even constructive to the mind, but they also lead to distraction and disturbance.  There is nothing that I can do that does not lead me back to this deep longing for a love beyond that which I’ve known.  Don’t get me wrong; I’ve had relationships with wonderful men and great friendships which were satisfying for the short term- but in the end I am single and solitary.  My mind tells me it’s because I’ve not met the ‘right’ people, and there was always that unattainable person who didn’t want me who would have been the perfect companion, if only they had wanted to be.  Yet there has never been a situation I didn’t want to change, and there was never a feeling of complete satisfaction:  At least- not at this moment.  What I mean is that whether there was a feeling of complete satisfaction at some point in the past, it is not here now, and so it is as if it never existed.  This feeling of dissatisfied longing seems to rule my present with an iron fist that refuses to believe that any other possibility could ever exists, and that it will ever change.  This is not possible in truth, because as a feeling, I know its nature is to change:  All feelings change- although the illusion that they create is that they will be here forever.  As long as this moment lasts forever, then so will this feeling. 

If only I could find the answer then perhaps I would know:  Yet I don't think I even know the question.