REGISTER

Whatever confronts you, don’t believe it.
When something appears shine your light on it.
Have confidence in the light that is always working inside you.  —Linji

I am writing this while in Kyoto, Japan, which seems appropriate. For me, traveling has been an opportunity to practice letting go of what I believe. I left the states to travel in Europe for what I believed to be a summer, but didn’t return for sixteen years.

I still remember my first night in Europe—in Amsterdam. I went out for a beer. When the bartender presented me with a glass that was one-third foam, I was about to complain, when the person standing next to me leaned over and said, “That’s the way they do it here.” Having just finished a season working as a bartender in a ski resort at Lake Tahoe, I believed I knew what a correctly poured beer looked like. That experience in that bar in Amsterdam was an opportunity for me to not believe what I believed to be true.

Shortly after beginning my job as an English teacher in Tehran, I was walking down the street and thought I would try hitchhiking, so I stuck my thumb out. After a short time, someone pulled over, a young Iranian, who not only gave me a ride, but also gave me advice. He told me that sticking your thumb out the way I had, in Iran, was the equivalent of holding up your middle finger and he encouraged me not to do that again. 

The thing is that we are all travelers. And if we can remember that, we wouldn’t hold on so tightly to what we believe. You don’t have to leave your country to encounter other cultures, we are each our own culture. 

When I returned to the states I experienced a kind of culture shock, which was very disorienting. I felt like a foreigner in my own country. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, I found that my disorientation became curiosity. The curiosity of being in a foreign country and so feeling like a foreigner in my own country became an opportunity rather than a problem. 

A couple of other koans came along as I’ve been hanging out with this ‘not believing.’ First, there was last week’s koan about rank and how believing is a kind of rank. The other was Case 68 in the Book of Serenity, in which we are told, “Awakening has no country, where will you find it?” 

That is exactly where we find it.

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—David