On the Veranda

Part of her thought if she'd been able to just let go, the sheaves of renderings would have built themselves, harvest come home. Another delusion, no doubt. She knew she'd been grandiose, and didn't have much to show for it. She had committed that most American of sins: failed to move laterally.

- from Bruce Wagner's Memorial

It's going to be another one of those days, by which I mean frustrating. I'm staring at the computer screen, hitting "Refresh" every thirty seconds or so—as if inspiration of any sort ever comes via the Internet.

Sure. If I hit "Refresh" just this one more time, all my problems will be solved. My Inbox will suddenly overflow with love, affection, opportunity, wealth, challenges, self-confidence, and the answers to all my still-unarticulated questions. That's going to happen. (I mean, how big would that attachment have to be, exactly?)

I hit "Refresh." And when I'm not "Refreshing," I'm typing, using similar (if slightly better-founded) logic: that if only I keep typing—spewing words as fast as they pop into my head—then eventually, like the monkey at the keyboard, eventually, I'll have to stumble on to some wisdom.

And eventually, maybe I will.

But I'm not sure it's going to happen today.

* * *

My Zen archery teacher (yes, I had a Zen archery teacher) would talk about the importance, in Japanese architecture, of the veranda. Because of his pronunciation, vee-lan-da, it took me ridiculously long to realize what he meant. Actually, it took me ridiculously long to realize what he meant, because teaching Zen archery (kyudo) to a Westerner is a somewhat futile exercise. We harbor B-movie samurai fantasies about shooting things—but kyudo has almost nothing to do with shooting, or even bows, arrows, or targets. Rather, the study of kyudo is a kind of brain-washing through storytelling—and the bow is nothing but a set of stories, which, if used properly, might break some entrenched habits, and replace them with new ones.

In kyudo, you don't pull the bow string. You open the bow.

In kyudo, you don't shoot the arrow. While opening the bow, the arrow will release.

In kyudo, there is no target. (The word we used for "target" means "that fuzzy faraway thing.") An arrow might hit the ceiling and still have been the result of an excellent shot, depending on how it was released. In self-help parlance: you are the target.

All you have to do is let go.

* * *

A veranda is a space in between—neither inside not outside, neither here nor there. When you have left a place and have not yet arrived at the new place, you are on the veranda.

In my culture, in Western culture, we are encouraged to move quickly from one place to another, always to be on our way ... somewhere. We are encouraged to aim for a target, and to hit it, and if we do this, we have made a "good shot."

But in kyudo, the ceilings of the verandas are littered with arrows that strayed very far from that fuzzy faraway place called the "target". In kyudo, one is encouraged to take off one's shoes, kneel down on the veranda, and contemplate the path of these arrows, each of which might have been a "good shot."

Sometimes it's a good shot, even if it fails to move laterally. Sometimes you have to stay on the veranda, and be patient, so that you can know where to go next. Sometimes you have to let go.