Comfortable with Uncertainty; Open to Contingency

Last summer I was preparing for Dharma Transmission with my Zen teacher, Bruce Fortin, who lives in Occidental, California. Dharma Transmission is an eight-day ceremony with just two main participants: the teacher and student, that marks the end of formal training as a Zen priest - though of course as a student of Zen my training continues endlessly. I have studied with Bruce for the last 12 years, much of it from a distance, as I now work with Zen students myself online, but I have been a priest for 15 years, and a Zen student for more than 30 years.

We had been preparing for the ceremony for the two years before: studying texts together that have been part of the preparation for Dharma Transmission for centuries; going deeper in our student/teacher relationship; and on my part, sewing a new set of Zen robes, brown rather than black, with each of the 10,000 stitches a vow.

We had set a date in August, and my plan was to travel out to California from the Midwest for the ceremony, by train.

And then, on July 6th, a month before the date for the Dharma Transmission, I was diagnosed with COVID, after being on the train from the Pacific Northwest. Because of medications I take, I am immune compromised, and my journey through COVID went on and on. It became clear, a couple of weeks in, that there there was no way that I could travel to California in August. I called and cancelled my train tickets, my voice choked with tears. While lying on the sofa I came up with plan after plan about how to get to Occidental, and plan after plan had to be revised as the illness continued.

Finally I had to abandon any plan at all, and focus on recovering from the pneumonia I had developed after COVID. Bruce and I kept talking, and he reminded me of one of the teachings of Pema Chodron, to be “comfortable with uncertainty”. We agreed that we needed to put that statement on the altar, if and when I actually made it to California.

Finally in mid-September my health turned toward the better, and I could make and perhaps even enact an actual plan. I decided that the safest way to avoid taking any viruses to my beloved teacher was to DRIVE to California, rather than trusting public transportation. There was a certain risk in this plan too, since my nearly 20-year-old VW Jetta (the “Metta Jetta”) had nearly 300,000 miles on it even before the trip. I took a week to drive across the country, camping out most of the way, then another four days in isolation before beginning the ceremony. Even then I wore a mask most of the time we were together. I decided that there was another statement that needed to go on the altar as well: “Open to contingency”.

On the second day of the Dharma Transmission ceremony, Bruce developed severe back spasms, the kind that leaves a person gasping in pain and in need of strong medication. This was also not part of the plan. But we had made a commitment to be comfortable with uncertainty, open to contingency, and although nearly every moment of the ceremony, like most Zen ceremonies, is meant to be done “just so”, we continued, while improvising in various ways.

In the midst of all the challenges, there was tremendous sweetness. Both of us had such strong commitment, even with all the barriers and twists and turns. I had made it to California, more than 2,000 miles, in an ancient car, and I had not brought COVID to my teacher. Bruce had worked so hard to have everything we needed for the ceremony. And of course, over those days other unexpected things arose, and once again, there we were, called to be “comfortable with uncertainty, open to contingency”, to meet the unexpected with grace, kindness, and a little sprinkle of humor, continuing the dance wherever it led.

One afternoon I went for a walk and found a bigleaf maple leaf in the road. I had been doing calligraphy as part of the ceremony, using a fine brush and sumi ink, and I brought the leaf home and wrote our saying on the leaf, placing it on our altar as a reminder.

And yes, we made it through, culminating in the final ceremony on the last midnight, and then afterward we walked out into the fields and gazed at the infinite sky full of stars.