Autumn Light - Edwina Norton

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seat was beside the altar, facing us. We students sat facing the walls in traditional Japanese Zen style. An entrancing and stately ceremonial world, far from the pain of my then unhappy daily life.

      I loved the silence of zazen and the soft, soothing light. I could sit down and rest deeply in the quiet, alone, but in the reassuring company of others earnestly seeking peace and truth. I was humbled and grateful to be with Kobun and the other, more experienced Zen students. I could be safe in their presence. In this compassionate container, I learned to sit cross-legged, spine extended, shoulders and arms relaxed yet energetic enough to hold my hands at my lower abdomen in the Zen mudra. Eyes half open, I gazed softly at the wall.

      As I learned the physical posture for zazen, I also learned to receive whatever thoughts arose. I trained myself to just observe whatever came up, however difficult or distressing. And let it go—over and over again. The zendo silence received and held me as I was, moment to moment. It permitted me to face life as it was. Sometimes I felt infused with the glowing candlelight as if I were alight with inspiration.

      I became Kobun’s student and Haiku Zendo became my refuge. There I could stop worrying about what others thought or what contortions I needed to go through to satisfy them. Some years later I told a friend, “I love to come to the zendo because I can just be myself. I don’t have to pretend to be what other people want.” Zen revealed the way out of the pain and chaos of my marriage. Zen practice remains, after all these years, my refuge.

      It took only a few weeks for the settled quiet of zazen to present me with reality: The problem I had was not just that Dave drank too much. The problem really was alcoholism. When this bad news first arrived in my awareness, I fought it. This couldn’t happen in my family. I couldn’t have married an alcoholic. My husband was too intelligent and educated to be an alcoholic. I didn’t know yet that a critical feature of the disease is self-delusion, which makes it so difficult to cure.

      Every day when I sat down in the calm and steady container of zazen, the message persisted. Calmly, gently, it insisted that, yes, it was true: alcoholism was the root problem. Painful as it was, I knew I must accept this reality so that I could find a way to overcome it. The power of zazen is amazing. When we accept what is actually happening, we are freed to work with it effectively.

      I set about problem-solving. In addition to sitting zazen every morning, I started going to Al-Anon meetings to learn what I could do to change the situation. There I learned the Twelve Step program that Alcoholics Anonymous follows. I also learned how I, too, could recover from the damage and turmoil alcoholism inflicts. How consoling it was to hear other people’s stories, so similar to mine. For three years I attended two or more Al-Anon meetings a week, absorbing the steps to emotional recovery and beginning to reconstruct the way we lived. I talked to Alec and Dan, then ages fifteen and ten, about alcoholism and their dad, and what we all could do to change our situation. They seemed relieved to name the problem.

      Dave still drank. I still shouldered virtually all responsibility for our family life and home. I worked around his increasingly dysfunctional behavior—failure to keep promises or appointments, criticism of almost everyone, procrastination, anger and bad moods, vociferous cursing. To shelter the boys from his distressing presence, I busied them in outside activities. Change was slow.

      The sense of failure I had from not being able to solve the root problem of Dave’s drinking, however, over time eroded my sense of personal agency. As he grew sicker and more miserable, he blamed and berated me more. In frustration and confusion, even as I practiced “Letting go and letting God,” I came to half-believe that I was the cause of his unhappiness. Or more accurately, that I was responsible for making him happy, and I’d failed. This is the basic premise of co-dependence. It would distort all of my relationships for many years to come.

      Dave claimed I didn’t love him unconditionally as a good wife should. He criticized me for always Doing, never Being. I was a Zen student. Why couldn’t I just sit still and Be? Why was I always Doing something? he repeatedly complained. He was not aware that because he did almost nothing to take care of our home and family, I had to do more. Nor did either of us realize that my constant activity was a symptom of anxiety and unhappiness. By the time I finally woke up to the emotional peril I was in, my sense of self had been seriously damaged. Like the proverbial frog that would have jumped out of the water had it been thrown in when it was already boiling, I was deep in the steadily heating water of co-dependence before I realized I must get out or die.

      At last, supported by Al-Anon friends, I summoned the courage to tell Dave I thought his problem was alcoholism. As is typical in these situations, he denied the label, calling his problem depression—which did underlie and also perpetuate his drinking. It was many months before he could admit that he needed help. During that time, finding relief in the support I got through Al-Anon and zazen, I continued those practices. I grew stronger emotionally. Then one day Dave agreed to go to an AA meeting. Over the next year or so he was in and out of both AA and denial. We separated for a year. We reunited for another year. But he couldn’t stay away from alcohol. We divorced and a few months later he died by suicide. The tragedy of my life is that though I was able to save myself, I could not save him. Nor could I prevent the emotional damage to my sons, a bitter legacy for a mother to leave her children.

      The Buddha taught that when we cling to or resist reality, we suffer. Through Zen and Al-Anon I learned to face the suffering that addiction causes and over time to let my anger and grief go. The zendo and Al-Anon meetings were refuges from a difficult home life, but my lack of self-confidence infected even my Zen practice. I didn’t know if it was appropriate to discuss personal problems in dokusan (private interview with the teacher), but when I met with Kobun my problems spilled out anyway. He was very kind, accepting me as I was. Mother had always wanted the best for me, but her advice usually focused on improvements I should make. My husband, in the classical dynamic of familial repetition, also counseled improvements, repeatedly saying I was wrong to feel what I felt. When Kobun simply accepted what I said I felt, it was a revelation. In one dokusan session I confessed that I was afraid of driving on the freeway with Dave, even though he was a good driver. Kobun said, “Of course. Your fear comes from the responsibility you feel for your children. You don’t want anything to happen to you for their sakes.” His acceptance amazed me. Those closest to me repeatedly had dismissed my feelings. Kobun’s kindness became the model for how I wanted to treat others. I don’t always live up to his example, but acceptance of others as they are remains my goal.

      Three years into practicing Zen, one evening after a brief, face-to-face interaction with Dave, I intuited that he was going to die, though he was not then physically ill. He had come to our house because the next day he was moving back to his hometown in Washington. He had phoned to tell me this news, wanting to avoid the pain of saying goodbye in person. But young Dan insisted that he come over. Of course it was a sorrowful visit, but worse than that, I detected a blackness underneath the surface of his face, as if death was in him. After he left, I was badly shaken and couldn’t sleep that night.

      The next morning, alarmed by the power of my insight and not knowing what to do to help Dave, I phoned Kobun. I didn’t know if it was proper for a student to call him at home, but I was frightened. Immediately, he responded: “Yes,” he said, “please come see me. I will help you prepare for his death.” When we met, Kobun gave me very practical advice: Get my own affairs in order by making a will and family trust. Write a letter to Dave telling him that I forgave him and asking his forgiveness; and after that, phone him to re-establish friendly terms. Kobun’s pragmatic counsel was all the more meaningful, given how unworldly he seemed to be.

      I did what Kobun advised, and some months later, when Dave took his life, again Kobun was there for me. He came to our house and led traditional Zen ceremonies on the fourteenth and forty-ninth days after Dave’s death, as is the Buddhist tradition.

      Because of Kobun’s compassion at this crucial time, I had good reason to be devoted to him. I felt blessed to be his student and trusted him completely. In the difficult time after the divorce but before Dave’s death, I had asked Kobun if I could have a lay person’s ordination, called Jukai. In this ceremony of commitment to Zen practice one receives and recites the Precepts, the ethical principles

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