Zen and the Art of Stealing Buddhist Books

Walking with holes in your shoes, taking, giving, and other necessities to existence.

My mother says that I “gleeped her copy of ‘Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind,’” when I was a kid. I stole it. Not very Buddha of me. I was curious, really curious. I took it one day and I don’t think I opened a page till 20 years later, so maybe not so curious. Semi-curious.

It’s wild how foreshadowing works or how one thing leads to one thing and the universe ties it all together in a specific timeline just for you, whatever that thing is called. Sometimes it makes me feel special. Sometimes it makes me feel like an idiot. Like how did I not see that? Feel the trajectory?

Oh yes, Human. Hi.

I hiked across the Grand Canyon once with friends and asked a Supreme Court Justice of a state not to be named if he was spiritual. We had spent the day hiking together and sharing stories. It seemed like a natural progression. We were surrounded by red rocks and ravens deep in the valley. It felt right. This was after Travis, my husband, had died. Then there was that whole global pandemic. Followed by my truck getting broken into, everything was stolen from it the night before the hike, so I walked across the canyon in shoes with holes in them. The thieves didn’t need old Hoka’s, they just needed my new ones.

I knew I could hike 26 miles in shoes with holes in them. The universe had taught me that.

The thieves took the wedding necklace Trav had gotten me. The boots he’d given me. The backpack he was wearing when he fell 400 feet with a boulder the size of a school bus down a mountain. Bang. Ding. Throb. Sounds and feelings I don’t know. Can’t know. But I do know. The thieves took this and that, not knowing they were taking pieces of him. And not pieces. And all pieces and no pieces.

I stole my Mom’s Buddhist book.

We don’t always know what we’re taking.

I wrote after Travis died and fortunately those words connected me to many people - heart sinews. Grief and love and loss and breath and just existing for a moment on this planet does that, it connects us. I didn’t have a choice about writing. That was the universe. I’ve been paralyzed by the idea of writing my whole life. I only write when I don’t think about it. You could say I was afraid. People say that bravery is being afraid but doing it anyway.

I am grateful to all the people I connected with over words. The ones I wrote. Or, the ones I read. Thank you, writers.

Corrine read my writing and she connected me to Alex. Alex’s husband died too, he was 33 like Trav when he died. Tall. Red Beard. Medical First Responder. All like Trav. And not like Trav. Boom boom goes the heart of the universe, sinews stretch from heart to heart to heart. The strings of hearts stretch across all thoughts of time and space. Are they coming? Or are they going?

Arteries. Veins.

Alex. Blair. Pete. Trav.

Are they coming? Or are they going?

Corrine connected Alex and I four days before I left for Anchorage. Alex lives in Anchorage. I live in Montana but was traveling North. “Do you want to meet?” We met. “You’re so tall!” She told me when we met. We cried too. Not right away but when her heart strings spoke words my heart strings had felt, we cried. Losing your love does that, you cry when others lose their love. You know a new language of loss.

We walked and talked about corridors within the heart. Being two and one and none and all. We talked about foreshadowing, how the light shines from behind so you can only see it in reverse, when you look back. So frustrating. Soooooo universal. (Rolls eyes, takes a breath, ok ok).

Death has shadows. Foreshadows. The universe softly whispers that darkness to you. You hear them right away but only see them when you look back. Oh, hello, Death, I felt you but couldn’t see you so I knew and I didn’t know.

A year later Alex recommended a book to me, “Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World” by Katie Arnold. Ok, wait, I feel like this is important: Corrine, Alex, myself, and Katie (she’s the author of the book. I don’t know her personally even though I know some of her intimacies - I read them - I’m not a creep). Ok yes, I stole my Mom’s Buddhist book so I have been a thief. I am a photographer too. So maybe I am a creep. Creep. Thief. Human. Oh yes, runner too. Don’t forget.

Ok, so we established that we’re all runners. We all run long distances. I feel like this needs to be said. Emphasized. Because trees and mountains and rocks and streams and birds that sing and birds that cry all have heart sinews too. When we run we hear them. Sing and cry birds. Sing and cry mountains. Sing and cry, Blair and Alex. Katie and Corrine.

And then there was that man who passed me once on the trail when I was hugging a tree and crying because I missed Trav so much I didn’t really want to be here any longer but the tree was there and I felt and wept and held and the tree was there so I stayed here. Thank you, Tree.

“Oh no, I’m fine dude, you can just move along, I’ll probably be here for a while,” I said with arms still wrapped around the tree, cheeks dinted in by tree bark. New tears still coming out of these tiny little tear ducts I have. How can so many tears come out of such small spaces? I didn’t ask him, I only said it in my head, he seemed overwhelmed just by the sight of me, I didn’t want to add on rhetorical questioning.

Bravery is being afraid but doing it anyway. Fine fine fine, I’ll run down the trail back to an empty house. I’ll let go of this tree. I’ll keep living.

Alex recommended Brief Flashings and it’s a fucking heart shot out of the universe, out of a human heart, and a spindle of sinews that land to you and you and me too. Words do that, connect us. Well, they can, of course they can tear us apart too. I’ve had people try to hurt me with words. That sucks. And, is so human.

People can hurt you with their silence too.

I read Brief Flashings and Alex and I talked about running and Zen and Shunryu Suzuki. So. Much. Suzuki. The book is filled with him. That’s the thing. The light. The shadow. The look back.

I dated a man who once told me that the sun sets backwards twice a week. I’ve never forgotten those words because they’re so beautiful. He wasn’t always beautiful to me. But maybe the sun really does set backwards sometimes. Maybe that’s when we get to see the shadows. The fore before the shadow. Suzuki talks a lot about time, nothing about it being linear. Often time seems to move backwards, out from a point right here, back to then. When the house wasn’t empty.

Suzuki wrote, “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind,” and Katie loves this book. So did my Mom. Katie loves this book and I love her book. She quotes Suzuki throughout her own words. How his sinews and strings opened doors and eyelids and heart corridors for her.

“Hey, Mom. I stole that Zen book from you didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you totally gleeped it.”

“Wow, you were almost done with it, you just had a chapter left, the bookmark is still there.”

“Yeah that book really helped me.”

Damn.

We don’t always know what we’re taking.

Then my mom did something she never does- she kept talking. She told me about how she saw a therapist when we lived in Kentucky, how he was a Buddhist monk and how much he helped her. I remembered this from overhearing hushed conversations when I was a kid because it was the fucking 90s and no one talked about therapy. Talk therapy! Talk! But my Mom says it, so casually, so beautifully, with no shadow, nonchalantly she says it, “Oh, you know, when I went to therapy.”

I want to ask one million questions. I want a million words to fall out of her mouth.

What made you want to go to therapy? What did you talk about? What made you sad or angry or hurt or or or or? You can have all those feelings, Mom. You can have the space for all those feelings. I’ll cry with you, Mom, out of these ridiculously small tear ducts. My heart has felt too and sometimes our hearts can cry for one another. People have tried to hurt me too, Mom. I’m sorry, Mom. I’m here. Still here. We could go thank that tree together.

I don’t say any of this. Of course.

I was raised without a lot of conversation.

I don’t want to scare my Mom into silence.

Like the time I interrogated Trav’s best friend, Joey, after Trav died. Joey has lost so many best friends. He has carried all of their bodies out of the mountains. I wanted to ask him how and why and what does he feel and how do all of these tears come out of these microscopic tear ducts and and and and. And, I asked so many questions I didn’t really leave any space for answers. I can be aggressive. People say aggression often comes from fear.

He forgave me. Joey. Well, actually he was never even upset at me, I just apologized because that’s my habit and he said, “It felt nice to have someone ask.”

Bravery is being afraid and doing it anyway.

I only see the shadows in reverse.

My heart will cry for your heart.

Maybe that’s how we shoulder all of this. Hold all of this.

Together. Hi, Human.

I didn’t know when I gleeped my mom’s Buddhist book that 20 years later I’d be a widow befriending another widow reading a phenomenal book on Zen. That we would shoulder this together and alone and together. I didn’t know that time wasn’t linear.

I didn’t know I would feel my own soul slip out of my soul pod to go be in the mountains next to Trav the day he died. Goodbye, Soul. When you come back, part of me will be gone and part of Trav will come back with you. We all become one another. Fold. Mesh. Break off. Kintsugi - the gold souls of each other that fills the breaks in our own when we are heart broken.

Broken open.

I didn’t know people would steal from me or try to hurt me with words. Still, so human.

I didn’t know that people and their words would save me.

I didn’t know a tree could save me.

I didn’t know that my Mom and I would both start saying more.

I didn’t know that the sun does set backwards twice a week.

That’s what the Justice felt too, I can’t remember the exact words he picked out from all of the words that we can chose from but as we began to walk out of the valley together, he told me that when he looks back on his life, he can’t help but see the guiding force of some sort of energy guiding him, supporting him, pushing him to grow and to learn, to be brave and to love. And, to be loved. He could only see it when he looked back. Shadow. Light. How grateful he was.

Yes, of course, I cried out of these insanely small yet incredibly strong tear ducts, again, because my heart felt his words. Veins. Arteries.

Yes, I am reading “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind,” now. Twenty years after ‘borrowing’ it from my Mom. It’s phenomenal. As Katie says, it’s A Brief Flashing in the Phenomenal World.

We don’t always know what we’re given.