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Join us this Monday night to talk about the wisdom of the ancients and review David Hinton’s visit from last Monday.

Those who have passed the barrier can not only meet Zhaozhou face to face, but also walk hand in hand with the whole descending line of ancients. Eyebrows entangled with theirs, you will see with the same eyes and hear with the same ears. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful joy?

—Gateless Gate, Case 1, Wumen’s commentary

When I recently asked author and translator David Hinton where he formally practiced meditation, he responded: “It’s just me and the ancients.” I often feel that way.

We held a small retreat at a center in the Point Reyes National Seashore several weeks ago. Perched on the sandstone cliffs above the Pacific, Commonweal’s cornerstone project, since its founding, has been the Cancer Help Program: a week-long residential retreat for those with cancer and their partners. I could feel the ancients’ abiding presence there on the edge of the vast ocean.

Going on a walk above the seashore, several of us visited what is known as the “Chapel,” a shed-like building on the south side of the property. Opposite the door and on the floor, someone had placed a fresh bouquet of irises. To the left was a pile of small stones with names or short messages painted on them, apparently in memoriam. One of the people visiting the Chapel said of Commonweal, “This is the place where people come to die.”

The next morning, people were shuffling in and out the front door just before pre-dawn meditation in the main house. At at the edge of my vision was one person who remained standing just inside the door, as if waiting or in meditation. When the half hour passed, I glanced up at the person and saw a tall coat rack, draped with garments. An ancient had joined us for a time.

Twenty-five years ago, I checked out Commonweal to learn about their cancer program. My father Buck, at 79, had just been diagnosed with stage-four non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I felt a need to become one of his caregivers, and called the director, Michael Lerner, whose own father had contracted non-Hodgkin’s, but who eventually died of other causes.

At the time, a competitor company was recruiting me to take a big new job; I told them I might have to turn down the offer to care of my father. I suggested to Buck that we go to Commonweal together for a week-long retreat, and his gruff response was: ”I have lived a long time, and want to live longer.” Indeed, that difficult bastard did live longer, finally passing at age 90 of congestive heart failure.

Now I am an ancient. It can seem daunting to be in the front row, to be the inheritor of a vast and powerful wisdom tradition; not just the wisdom of Zen, but the wisdom of all humanity. But that is really none of my business. It is none of our business. It is the business of the universe. Our job is to take the hands of the ancients, and realize that when we do, we mysteriously find that our eyebrows are intertwined with theirs, that we see with the same eyes, and hear with the same ears. How wonderful. How wonderful.

Join us for a koan, meditation, dharma talk and conversation.
Register to participate. All are welcome.

—Jon Joseph