Bernie taught me atonement. It was one of his many gifts to me. The first time I heard him talk about atonement as “being at one with,” I thought he was clever, but was it too big a stretch? I checked the dictionary. Yes, Bernie was pointing me to something important.
Maybe Bernie always knew about atonement. I didn’t. Bernie’s childhood was more Jewish than mine. I grew up in such a non-observant household. It would be an overstatement to say that we observed nothing, but not much of an overstatement.
We noticed Chanukah occasionally, meaning some years I got Chanukah presents as well as Christmas presents. Chanukah, my father assured me, even as I enjoyed a present, was not a major Jewish holiday. It was more of an American, even a Hallmark creation, so that the Jews too would have shopping to do while the majority of Americans were preparing for Christmas. Intermittently when Morrigan was little, we organized Chanukah presents.
We have matzos in the house on Passover. Dee makes sure we have a Jewish holiday meal, and there is always matzo. I have never been to Shul during the high holy days. I would have gone as a kid, but for the high holy days, expensive tickets were required.
I’ve only been to temples for weddings and bar mitzvahs, and I didn’t meet a rabbi until my first wedding. I’ve never been to temple for sabbath services, except once, on my first Street Retreat. As we meandered through the Wall Street area toward a Friday evening sunset, a few of us, Bernie and I included, were commandeered to come into a temple to help make a minyan, the quorum of ten Jewish men required for a service.
But maybe I’m becoming more Jewish. Yamada Roshi told Bob Kennedy that Zen practice would make him a better Catholic. Bernie’s teaching on atonement has gotten me into Yom Kippur in an idiosyncratic practice which includes fasting but not going to temple. I fast, I meditate, and in preparation for Yom Kippur I’ve been writing my annual atonement blog.
This is it.
I love this practice. Atonement is nothing like I expected. Before Bernie, I thought of atoning as apologizing and being forgiven. Forgiveness erased the “sin.” It was magical. Bernie showed me we were always trying to get rid of our offending parts, parts of ourselves and parts of our communities. Make them go away.
In his social action practice, Bernie sought to bring to the societal table those who had been excluded. Coming to Zen with 25 years of work in mental health, I was already part of shrinking and shutting down the big, state psychiatric hospitals in which people living with mental illnesses were locked away out of sight. We called it “deinstitutionalization.”
I was ready for this aspect of Bernie’s teaching, bringing to the societal table the rejected aspects of society, but what about the rejected aspects of myself. This was a surprise. This was an aspect of Bernie’s teaching which was radical and new for me. Before I met Bernie, “working on my flaws” meant therapy. Find the rough spots in my personality and behavior and smooth them. Control my anger, get over my shyness, make my defects go away. Lock them up with mental patients as far out on the end of Long Island as possible.
As another new year approaches and another Day of Atonement, what am I working with? Although I'm not a big sinner, there’s always stuff.
This last year, I have been greedy with my time. I’ve done a lot of writing, but Dee has a lot of caretaking on her plate. In committing to stepping up, to volunteering, not waiting to be asked to help, I can see that I am working with my conditioning. I am not going to kill my selfish self. I am going to hug it and love it and appreciate the challenge which this self presents. I love that. I am not disappointed in myself because this does not come easy.
I am also looking at the flares of my anger. They point me to important things, to demons.
I used to get angry when people challenged my role, questioned my authority. Thankfully, I’ve outgrown that. Or practiced my way through it.
My anger used to flare when someone disagreed with me, particularly when another person seemed to defend injustice, but I have been working for years now with Bernie’s “It’s just my opinion, man,” and through the repetition of the practice perhaps, it has finally penetrated. I don’t think I remember the last time that a different opinion angered me. It was certainly not this year.
And yet there are times when my anger still flares. I boil quickly when I feel disrespected. It may have been my father’s first teaching, although he was playing catch with me earlier, “Any time a bully hits you, hit him back as hard as you can. You may get your ass kicked, but the bully will think twice before messing with you again.” Don’t tolerate bullying. Don’t tolerate disrespect.
Feeling the flare, I do a Skandha scan. The form is comic book, flat planes of primary colors, loud sounds, booms and bams. I’m smelling, tasting, gun powder. Every muscle tenses. “Danger.” I am in a war zone, one of the worst, most negative moments of my life and yet I won’t let it go. “Disrespect,” I call it. The story sometimes shifts a bit, but it is always a story of injustice that must be resisted.
In those moments over the years, acting in “self-defense,” I have said some terrible things. I am beginning to smile although I’m certainly not laughing. Although my father warned me about bullying, although he faced bullies daily walking home from school in Halifax, I haven’t. Mostly the threats which I have faced have turned out to be misperceptions. I am smiling because I am learning to see the flare and to take a breath. I still tense and sweat, but I’m continuing to breathe.
I look back at the year that’s ending and forward to the new year. I have plenty to be at one with. Can I embrace the “horrifying” aspects of myself without turning my back on them, without shutting my eyes? Can I bring them to the table? Can I, in Maezumi Roshi’s words, “appreciate my life”? Being “at one with” is not complacency. This is my Yom Kippur practice. It’s a year-round practice, but Yom Kippur is the moment for reaffirmation.
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