Outside and In

I first came to the Pacific Northwest in 1989 for a friend's wedding. We stayed in a tiny house on the shores of Lake Washington, in Seattle's University District, but I had contracted a terrible cold and spent most of the first day in bed.

That first evening our hosts held a pre-wedding party which I was too sick to attend, and I remember lying in bed with the windows open to the deck, listening to two of our friends playing banjo and guitar and singing Bill Staines wonderful tune, "The Roseville Fair."

Oh, the night was clear, and the stars were shining
And the moon came up so quiet in the sky.
And the people gathered 'round and the band was a'tuning.
I can hear them now playing "Coming Thru the Rye."

And we danced all night to the fiddle and the banjo.
Their drifting tunes seemed to fill the air.
So long ago, but I still remember
When we fell in love at the Roseville Fair.

As the music echoed softly across the water, I fell in love -- with the song, and with Seattle, and I remember that what struck me most was that the windows were wide open, and they had no screens; no barriers between inside and outside. It was amazing, to me, to live in an environment not dominated by the need to protect against flying insects, in a place where you could be totally open to the outdoors.

This past weekend, on retreat at the Bloedel Reserve, our gathering place was the Japanese Teahouse at the reserve. It was a hot day, but the teahouse was cool, and again, because we do not have to contend with the insects that keep New Englanders behind screens, we left open the enormous sliding doors that lead to the zen garden in front of the house and to the deck overlooking the Japanese garden and pond behind the house.

At one point in the afternoon, as I lay on the couch by the fireplace, looking out across the opposite couch to the light, and the trees, and the rhododendron beyond, I realized that this is still exactly how I want to live: no barriers between inside and outside; no screens, no filters, just the breeze of the spirit blowing through.

This morning I began rereading a book given to me years ago by a dear friend who seems to have known my path before I even knew I was in the woods. Called The Enlightened Heart, the book is an anthology of sacred poetry, edited by Stephen Mitchell, and it begins with this observation:

"We dance round in a ring and suppose,/But the Secret sits in the middle and knows," wrote Robert Frost, looking in from the outside. Looking out from the inside, Chuang-Tzu wrote "When we understand, we are at the center of the circle, and there we sit while Yes and No chase each other around the circumference." This anonymous center -- which is called God in Jewish, Christian and Moslem cultures, and Tao, Self, or Buddha in the great Eastern traditions -- is the realest of realities."

This vision, of sitting with the secret at the center, is the pure joy of contemplation; that rare and precious jewel that gleams when we allow that barrier between outside and inside to slide away; when we stop our ceaseless comparing and evaluating, judging, testing, complaining... all those ego-centric patterns we have that keep us circling around the Yes and the No.

The joy that comes when we take the time to sit still is the cessation of that endless dance. And I long for that. But to get that peace, I have to choose to stop, to let go of all those selfish absorptions and just be. It is only when I make that choice that I can return to center and release the barriers that separate inside from outside. As it says in Psalm 19:

Let me keep surrendering my self
Until I am utterly transparent.