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This very place is paradise,
this very body the Buddha.

—Hakuin Ekaku, Praise Song for Meditation

War, conflict, argument. These times have long been with us, and because inside and outside are not two, they penetrate our hearts and minds. Like the Bodhisattva of Compassion, we cannot help but hear and see the cries of the world. But is it so strange to consider relief from those cries coming from simple, unexpected quarters?

This year we had a tremendous harvest of figs from our family tree. And after making jam and pickled figs, I slowly dry several pounds of fruit in the oven. Each afternoon, as I take out a couple of figs from the plastic bag in the fridge, I think of Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem about her Palestinian father, a journalist who was a passionate lover of figs.

“Appreciate your life,” one of my Zen teachers often said. I take a dried fig in hand, and feeling its leathery skin, I hear the crunch of seeds between my teeth and taste the sweet pulp of its fruit. Because inside and outside are not two, the precious fig-ness spills out to the far corners of the world, making it a bit more rich in being.

Last week, like thousands of others, I sent Naomi—a Pacific Zen Luminary—a note of congratulations for having received the prestigious Wallace Stevens Award for poetry. Her reply, which included thanks, was perfect Naomi: “I will try to be worthy!” Too late; already accomplished. Worthy of the largest, fattest, sweetest fig in the world.

—Jon Joseph

My Father and the Fig Tree

For other fruits, my father was indifferent.
He’d point at the cherry trees and say,
“See those? I wish they were figs.”
In the evening he sat by my bed
weaving folktales like vivid little scarves.
They always involved a figtree.
Even when it didn’t fit, he’d stick it in.
Once Joha was walking down the road
and he saw a fig tree.
Or, he tied his donkey to a figtree
and went to sleep.
Or, later when they caught and arrested him,
his pockets were full of figs.

At age six I ate a dried fig and shrugged.
“That’s not what I’m talking about!” he said.
“I’m talking about a fig straight from the earth –
gift of Allah! — on a branch so heavy it touches the ground.
I’m talking about picking the largest, fattest, sweetest fig
in the world and putting it in my mouth.”
(Here he’d stop and close his eyes.)

Years passed, we lived in many houses, none had figtrees.
We had lima beans, zucchini, parsley, beets.
“Plant one!” my mother said. but my father never did.
He tended garden half-heartedly, forgot to water,
let the okra get too big.
“What a dreamer he is. Look how many things he starts
and doesn’t finish.”

The last time he moved, I got a phone call.
My father, in Arabic, chanting a song I’d never heard.
“What’s that?”
“Wait til you see!”
He took me out back to the new yard.
There, in the middle of Dallas, Texas,
a tree with the largest, fattest, sweetest figs in the world.
“It’s a figtree song!” he said,
plucking his fruits like ripe tokens,
emblems, assurance
of a world that was always his own.

—Naomi Shihab Nye, from Everything Comes Next

COME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome.

Jon Joseph Roshi, Director of San Mateo Zen Community