No Plans

One of the lessons of the time of pandemic has been the readjustment of our relationship to planning. Plans keep getting postponed or canceled altogether. For those who have lived a lifetime of making plans and having many of them come to be, there is perhaps a healthy exercise in letting go of plans and being content with whatever is on offer instead.

Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Katherine Ingram.

The following was excerpted from a Zoom session of Dharma Dialogues,

Which was broadcast from Australia on July 18th,

2020.

It's called No Plans.

I've been thinking lately about the irony of the fact that many of us,

Many of us on this very call,

Have spent many years in a dedication to living in present awareness and not obsessing about future and talking about simplicity of being and spending a lot of time in places that would be conducive for that experience.

I've been thinking about how ironic it is that in this time of COVID,

We're essentially forced into that position.

We're forced into living in present awareness,

Not making big future plans,

Really living the kind of basic way that we live in retreat and that we have,

In a way,

Yearned for,

Talked about a lot,

Certainly.

In this past week or so,

I watched a series.

It's a BBC series from some years ago.

It takes place in two villages.

It's a period piece from the late 1800s.

That's when it was supposedly taking place.

There's these two little villages.

One is more fashionable than the other.

The other one is very,

Very poor,

But they're all interacting.

All these people are constantly interacting with each other.

There's all these little mini dramas.

One of the things that I was struck with and why I kept watching this series night after night is it was like an entry,

A portal into this other world,

A simple world,

A really sweet.

I'm sure it was obviously romanticized and idealized in many ways,

But there was such a relaxing feeling about people just living local lives.

They didn't go anywhere.

All they ever did was go from one town to the other,

Which were right next to each other.

Yet,

The portrayal at least was of a very rich life.

Everyone knew everyone.

People just helped each other as a matter of course.

That was part of surviving.

When it was time to bring in the harvest,

Everybody helped.

Of course,

Adverse things would happen,

But it rolled on in this reminder of the fact that it was not very long ago that people lived very locally.

Most of those people in this show had never even been to London,

Which would have not been a very big trip.

I told the story in my book,

Passionate Presence.

I got to know a man in Ireland many years ago when I first started teaching there.

His son was coming to my sessions.

In those days,

We would sometimes organize these jaunts out to the countryside,

And out to Galway,

And out to the Aran Islands.

We'd go as a group,

Really fun.

But this man who was coming to my sessions,

He invited me and some of the others out to his country area where his father lived.

His father was quite old when I met him.

He was in his 90s,

Very tall.

He had lived on the River Shannon and had been a farmer his whole life,

Since he was a boy.

He'd lived in that same village.

He went dancing every Saturday night.

He was very literate.

He was a great reader.

He was a gentleman farmer type.

He said that he went to Dublin one time.

It was a three-hour trip to Dublin on the train.

He went once and said he didn't like being in a city.

He came home.

That was the last time he went to a city.

I was so struck with him.

I was so taken by who he was and the contentment that breathed through him and around him.

I've never forgotten it.

I met him in the mid-90s.

I'm sure he's long dead now.

But it was a revelation for me.

I feel that my life in those days couldn't have been more opposite in that I was running all over the world.

I was running all over the world.

There was always some big excitement,

Big exciting thing that was about to happen next.

Because I was teaching present awareness,

Of course,

I was where I was to a great degree.

But there was always a plan afoot.

There was always a lot of planning and a lot of interacting.

A kind of part of my awareness would be looking forward to the next thing,

The next thing and the next movement and the next place and the next group of people.

This phase has of course stopped all of that.

It's not clear that we will be able to do that kind of travel ever again.

It's just not clear.

Even if we lick this virus,

As you probably all know,

The airline industry is practically folding up.

I think it's going to be quite expensive to travel.

Anyway,

It may be a while before we can make those kinds of plans again.

And it may be years.

Now,

If it was,

Then we would be living like people used to live for almost all of human history.

We will be living in smaller areas of space.

And maybe we'll be living more simply.

I do recommend that for us.

I recommend that we use this time to come back to very simple ways of life and find great enjoyment in them.

Like people did long ago and for almost all of human history.

This running about the world has been very unsustainable,

Has been pretty toxic,

Has been an environmental wrecking ball.

And now that show is a bit over,

At least as far as we can see for quite a while.

So then what?

Here we are.

It's gotten a lot simpler.

Is that the case for you all?

It's sure a lot simpler.

Now,

I understand some people are facing economic stress.

And my recommendation is get creative.

This is a really good time to pivot if whatever it was you were doing is no longer going to be on offer,

Then find something else that can help sustain you.

And don't be frightened by that.

Humans have adapted in all kinds of ways for all this time.

And we will have support in this.

So let yourself if that's the recognition,

If the recognition is okay,

This has to change because the world has changed,

Then also you bow.

And perhaps your your new pivot more accommodates your dedication to a simpler life.

All the things that most matter to you are still going to be there.

Like one of the corny advertisements in America has this thing that the best things in life are not things.

Right?

It's all the ways that your heart gets lit through music,

Through being with your loved ones,

Through feeling into your own privilege of living in your own senses.

Through the taste of something delicious.

The fluttering insights that go through your mind when you're more simple.

I know we've spoken about this on previous sessions,

Just how you know how there's almost like a clearing of space for memories and for remembering old friends,

Some of whom have passed,

But thinking about things you haven't thought about in a long time.

Because now there's more space in your mind.

There's more space because it's not being filled up with plans and what about this and let's run over there and let's get this then let's go there and and also we're living more in in the rhythm of of the seasons.

We can't just be planning to go spend a season somewhere else.

Some people chase around according to seasons.

I used to do that a lot myself.

You know I'd want to be in places where it was the good season to be there and now we're in the seasons we're in that where we live.

There's something very beautiful about that too.

Tuning into the rhythms,

The rhythms of nature.

So these are the gifts despite the fact that there is a wave of fear around the world.

A lot of people are very sad.

There's a lot of mental illness,

A lot of mental depression.

People are far from their loved ones in many cases and don't know when they're going to see each other again.

These are all difficult.

There's no denying that but there are other gifts and look throughout time people have had to have had loss in these ways.

You know here in Australia the history of Australia in its you know and it's being settled by the Europeans people would be well first of all a lot of people got sent here to be prisoners for you know things like stealing some bread and they never would have even been able to have a letter or one more word with all the people that they left behind.

So time has many times have been very tough for lots of people and yet life carries on and people find ways to endure and to even rise above and to be buoyant through it.

We're still very very lucky and it's good to notice that.

It's good to really understand that we can take the gifts from this and be grateful.

I was really very full of thoughts about what you said about this time of ending that we're experiencing the ending of travel the ending of flying around the world which is a very central part of what I do.

I have sort of come into a period where I am instead of adding to my storehouse of memories of new cities or new people I'm instead I'm going through the storehouse and I'm putting things in order and I'm looking at old photographs and I'm writing like crazy just trying to put down periods of my life and to see for instance who were the spirit guides in that period of my life.

What was I trying to do?

What was all this energy I was putting in this direction for?

Also to use the time to face things that I haven't been wanting to face and the most difficult thing I've faced in the last two weeks since I've last seen you I've written a will and the experience of going through just putting that down and going through the I mean it's a lot of work.

I know I just updated mine actually this in these last few weeks.

So it is a very unburdening experience to have you know written a will to know I mean I have to still go to the notary but to just confront all of those questions you know what about my daughters?

What do my daughters want?

What do they really need?

What do I do with this apartment?

What do I do with my instruments?

What do I do with all this crap?

Then you think but none of this is worth anything to anyone else you know so so why write the will?

Well we want to bring it doesn't matter after I'm gone but it brings order to their lives.

Yeah it helps them to have a framework to deal with their grief perhaps or to somehow I don't know it's but it's an experience that I've been through in the last two weeks that's brought me quite a step further.

Yes yeah very interesting what you're saying about also just about the review of the of what's gone before rather than the adding on.

And I would think that in that review process this also links to the will.

A lot of things become clear that when you're galloping along you really don't have time to process them.

Even though some big things you do process of course because they demand it but lots of I don't know I just I've just noticed how many old friends and circumstances that I've been thinking about and reviewing in my heart and and actually reaching out to a few old friends that I hadn't talked to in a long long time and some have reached out to me as well.

You know I kind of I feel like I'm almost catching up with my with my life like because we're stopped.

It's like things are having a chance to kind of you know congeal.

To the will thing by the way I do think it's a kindness just so that people aren't left on top of the grief and the feeling of loss with a whole lot of confusing things to handle and like who gets what and where does this go and where's where's that account.

I think it's just a kindness for any for anyone who's had to be left with the mess of somebody's departure and you be expected it hasn't happened to me but that you're left with sorting it out.

I've seen a few friends just you know kind of feel resentful towards the dearly departed for not getting it together.

So it's just I think it's on that basis alone.

I also I had to clear out my brother's life he didn't have any money or anything but I had to go across the country and pack up his house and give out just give everything away.

He didn't he had nothing really any any worth particularly but we couldn't just leave it all there.

And I was so sorry for him.

I was so struck with all these things that were precious to him.

We're just like giving them away to like any passerby practically you know that how quickly your sort of treasures become just throwaways or things that are insignificant to other people.

So it's really good to know that as you're going along and realize like it's a way of living lightly with your stuff so called.

It's a great Zen story of no actually it's a Thai master.

He held up a cup and he said what is the best way to relate to this cup?

And the student says I don't know and the master says the best way is to relate as though it is already broken right just use it while it's still in a piece but it along with everything else will turn to dust.

And it's I mean it's tough to remember that in lots of of our modern life like we're really attached to our technological devices and I'm sure you're you have some very favorite instruments and there are certain things that you think oh no these are my tools this is my this is valuable stuff this allows me my expression and so on but still in the end it's just some stuff you know and the treasures are I think that's another thing about this time is that you know we see how things can go poof poof and they're gone.

British Airways just totally retired their entire fleet of 747s.

I mean mass these are like machines that were the expression of the most high levels of engineering you know and there's lots of them I forgot the number but it's an obscene number of planes that are just going to be just to the junk heap I guess.

I guess they'll try to use some of the parts but what for like oh they're not going to be building that many more planes you know and one of my friends told me the other day Darje Mael and I were on the phone his sister works she was a captain for United Airlines for decades they've just laid off thousands and thousands and thousands of people including the captains and I said to Darje that his sister has a small farm in Pennsylvania now she and her partner are just going to be doing their farm and I said this may have saved her life like this may have her losing her job as a pilot flying around in those planes for hours a day many hours a day he said yeah that was like playing Russian roulette and it was so it's it's a way in which we to my point about just living in more simple ways and not not needing high glamour and not needing dramatic experiences and you know just being more content you know to leave with an esoteric question yes one of the best things as I was going through this writing of the will of the will of the will of the will of the will of the will of the will of the of the will was to read about death to read various thinkers comments about death and the most interesting thing I read was we we kind of grieve for the future that we're not going to experience in leaving we we grieve about the future that we'll never know yeah and and this person pointed out how strange that we do not grieve about the history that we missed before we were born yeah that's a really good point so how would you respond to grief for a future that we won't experience um there's a great epicurus curious line in which he addresses this and basically says you're not there to not experience it essentially you won't be not experiencing it so you can you can grieve you can pre-grieve I think that um I think that part of like for me my my resistance is not so much to non-being but more to like the way that I'll have to die I do have a little fear around that there's some you know have some unpleasant visions of how that might go down um then there aren't that many of the ways that you can die that are perfectly pleasant so you know the odds are a little bit against you um reminds me completely of a side crazy thought running through my head of a new yorker um cartoon and do you remember the book how we die which it was this compendium of by some doctor a non-fiction book um of all the different ways people die like the classics and the heart attacks and what actually happens and so on anyway it's the best seller long ago so there's this guy reading how we die in his living room and the wife is answering the door and standing at the door is the grim reaper and she says what a co-winky dinky so yeah there are ways to die that would give me great I think great fear um but the non-being like my teacher Poonterjee used to say who doesn't want to go to sleep like is there ever a time when you you know you're tired and you want to go to sleep and have like you it's delicious falling asleep and it's delicious being asleep in deep sleep don't we actually love that and he used to say yeah he used to say who who doesn't want to fall asleep meaning that's from his point of view it's like you you go you go into non-being and that part doesn't bother me I mean there are you know certainly there are things that like you said about we're watching an incredible show here this cosmic play that we happen to be witnessing at the particular moment in history we've we've hit this show and so it's kind of fascinating there is a certain like what's going to happen next and so I do have a little bit of you know wanting to see further along in the series but maybe maybe I don't really want to see further along in the series but one one has to bow to whatever amount of the series you get to watch like a long-running soap opera yeah so my question is well you know how you were talking about like living a more local life and you know the pleasure that you were having in watching that show and then you know kind of that simpler vibe that that it got me thinking I just started rereading Anne of Green Gables it's you know it's a book that has a lot of meaning for me and I find a lot of comfort in it and one of the things that I really love about it is that it reminds me you know of taking joy in a lot of nature and in just being present but what I find is especially right now that really suits me that's you know it's definitely how I'm wired my life I think a lot of people would would would think my life is very small to begin with because I get so overstimulated when I'm trying to keep up with how the world was before the pandemic and so what I'm finding now is some I feel I feel some judgment and some resentment from some of my friends who who want things to be back the way they were right now and so you know here in Ohio it's like you know we're in my county we're under a mask mandate but the the the powers haven't shut everything back down and so I have my best friend actually who's like going out and living kind of like it was and I like I said I feel some judgment from from her of kind of keeping my life small and so it's like I get caught up in that because like I want to just enjoy the little things and I like my life that way but I just it feels it feels counterculture and so it can feel it can feel hard that way and so I just wondered if you had any thoughts about that.

I certainly do.

You're going to look like a great seer very soon because what is happening in the United States is going to probably force a massive hard lockdown at some point and that between now and that point there are probably going to be a lot of deaths.

The cases are now roaring along and they're jumping I mean not that long ago I think only two weeks ago there were 50,

000 and now there's 75,

000.

I mean it took all this time to get to 50 and now it took two weeks to get to 75 and who knows what even the true numbers are they may be far worse and there's a whole thing about this rush to open everything up there in the midst of this in the midst of this in the midst of the hospitals crashing in the midst of the doctors and nurses and the first responders crashing as well you know you see them on on the news literally crying you know they're just burned out already in many of the hot spots you know so hold your ground and it is very difficult when you're one of the ones who's being safe and who doesn't want to go out you know being in crowds especially in America.

I don't even want to do that here and we don't we don't have many cases where I live but I still am being careful because I don't want to get this disease.

I have read a lot and studied a lot about it and it's not really clear that you that everyone recovers from it.

A lot of people it seems don't and the long-term implications are terrible.

I mean it's a blood vessel disease so it attacks everything you know from your nose to your toes as they say and actually even more than that it's a very difficult disease to say and actually even more than that the brain.

So people who are not taking this seriously are seriously misinformed they're not they're not up on the data so you just walk your own path even if there's no one in your life who sees it the way you do you know there are plenty of people who do see it the way you do believe me there are there's plenty of people and I'm sure a growing number are going to come to that realization.

I guess as a follow-up question I've been working on on kind of letting go of judgment of myself finding enjoyment in the small things right now and giving myself permission to do so and it made me think of how you've talked about you know times to fallow and to just rest.

So I guess there's not really a follow-up question in there but just yeah I mean and also I've used the analogy of how in you know people who have been involved in farming and in food production how they will leave the field fallow for an entire season so that it revives so that the soil revives and replenishes itself right they don't just keep grinding it and I think that in a way the whole world needed a kind of a pause you know a fallow phase right and it is you know we were going toward a more of a contraction economically even before COVID.

This COVID is going to obscure the fat but in fact the world was the economy was contracting in a lot of ways and now there's a massive contraction and that it's hard to see when it would ever get back to some you know huge roaring along in.

So these are the kinds of things that are happening in our world that are going to have huge waves of effects and that's why I'm really encouraging us to live exactly as you're living.

Keep it simple.

The smaller the better at this point right having your needs be not very much so that you can get them met and figure out ways that you know that you can that you can get by and I also encourage us all to turn to community whatever that means to you even if it's your neighbors to feel like you have someone you can call and that you're also there at the ready to help them.

It sounds beautiful it's certainly the direction we have to go so you can be the seer in your group.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

I think this idea of the fallow and then the planting I think that rhythm is good to apply even on a daily basis you know that to live if possible to have breaks and or also maybe even just a day here and there where you really have absolutely nothing on the to-do list nothing at all you just have a breather from the doing.

You