So, here I am, sitting in a Starbucks in Watertown square working on my book.
I’d dropped Jan off at Perkins and will be going to my dermatologist in a couple of hours (after the basal cell a couple of years ago he said we were going to be very good friends…)
I’m rummaging through sermons and monkey mind columns hoping for bits of wisdom that might fit the book. There aren’t lots of people at the tables, but there is a rather long line of folk getting their caffeine hit on the way to, well, who knows to where?
Then I notice the background music. It’s not too low, but I’m kind of focused. But the tune catches my attention.
It’s a cover for Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.
My goodness…
I look at the crowd with slightly different eyes, a bit less distracted, a bit more generously…
Just for a second or two.
As I gazed upon my fellow travelers on the great way they all reminded me of a delightful cartoon from an Australian Zen newsletter I saw, oh I don’t know, maybe half a million years ago. And that’s hardly an exaggeration. At least twenty, twenty five years in calendar time…
It showed an urban scene, at least the Australian version. And everything blessed person and thing in the scene, buildings, trees, birds, people walking: all were wearing rakusus.
The rakusu is a small bib-like garment that resembles nothings so much as a Masonic apron, although around the shoulders rather than around the waist.
While we might encounter variations from various Buddhist cultures, it is from Japanese-derived Zen that we usually see these things here in the west. The rakusu is the visible sign of being a Buddhist.
Or, more properly, of being a Buddha.
In that moment.
In this moment.
All things are it.
And from a slightly different angle, and we do live from various angles at the same time, all things are calling us home.
Each presenting the great hallelujah.
And who knows when we’ll notice it, smell, taste or hear it.
Lifting a cup of coffee, and sipping.
Handing someone a can of green beans while volunteering at the local food pantry.
While receiving that can of green beans.
Flirting with a small child across the room as all wait for the doctor’s appointment.
Or, hearing Cohen’s words calling to us out of the great night…
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