Safe Driving Mode

Lotus Vu, a psychologist and Zen Buddhist teacher who grew up in Vietnam, shared her understanding of the overlap between trauma therapy and the teachings of Zen during an eight week course in Regina this spring. At the second class, she presented us with vegetable rolls wrapped in rice paper. I crunched on one while she spoke, trying to chew quietly. I had to rush off right at noon to pick up my son - we had a date to go to Costco - and Lotus often ended her sessions later than planned. 

“There’s just so much to cover,” she said, many times. “This is complex stuff. I’m trying to share two thousand years of Buddhist philosophy with you guys in eight classes, ha!” 

She was friendly. She spoke loudly and clearly and laughed often, a wide, crooked laugh, shifting on her prayer stool, tucking her grey robe under her feet. She was calm even when technology failed her. We met at Knox Metropolitan United Church, in a second-floor room with knobby green carpet, windows overlooking Victoria Avenue tipped ajar to let air circulate. Below us, ambulances and police cars and people rushing to the shopping mall; sometimes a band, bagpipes, trombones practicing in the sanctuary. The internet was patchy and twenty or so people, seemingly all from Ontario, were logged in on Zoom.

Modern psychology aims to integrate the fragmented self, Lotus told us, while Buddhism teaches that the self does not exist. Life is suffering and trying to avoid pain, trying to hold on to the good things (which are transitory) or even to your own being (also transitory), only makes the suffering worse. There is no objective reality. Everything we experience, everything that registers in our brain as real, as the world, is only sensation: a 3D, 4D, 5D film. When you are gone, it will be gone. I am paraphrasing, and likely getting things wrong. She held up an apple and said: an apple is not really like the thing you see in my hand - red, crisp, cold  - you only picture it that way because you’ve experienced it that way before. It is not like that to a dog, for example, who cannot see the colour red. So what is an apple, really?

Nothing. Nothing at all. A dream. 

Two thousand years of teaching. The class is over now and I’ve made it to one regular Saturday meeting so far with Clear Way Zen. I had trouble waking up, snoozed the alarm for a full hour. I had trouble organizing my clothes and finding a blanket to stuff in my backpack in case the room got cold. Sometimes they keep the windows open too long and we’re meditating so it would be rude to get up and make tea. A fuzzy blanket really helps. I had to take my morning pill and give Shadow, my old cat with hyperthyroidism, her morning pill. Also, I was on call and a pharmacist phoned while I was walking; I answered it on my new Apple Watch but couldn’t figure out how to transfer the call to my phone and sat down on the curb to talk so she could make out what I was saying. I was late to the church and had to be buzzed in. I wanted to try out a meditation bench but they were all taken so I found two cushions and settled in on my bent knees, remembered to set the watch to Silent and closed my eyes. I inhaled from my stomach and counted my exhales up to ten, then back to start again at one, though once I caught myself at eleven thinking about who was in the room and once at twelve planning where I might like to camp next summer. Then my phone rang. It was at the bottom of my backpack and though I’d silenced my watch, I realized I’d forgotten about my phone. 

Being on call, I had to answer. I hauled the backpack out of the room. It was my son, asking what time we’d be going to Costco. He needed more eggs, more protein powder. I had wine and gin on my list, though later I deleted them, deciding again that I should drink less alcohol. Do I want to live to a hundred though, or ninety or eighty or seventy or sixty - do I care? What does it matter if I die tomorrow? We have nothing, we never have anything, except the present moment. Once you are dead, that’s it - you are not any longer. You, you, you. Your molecules become dirt, become rain, become pieces of a new creature assuming the earth continues to be a planet that can support life. I updated my list and whispered to Caleb that I’d be home shortly after twelve.  

As I stepped back into the room, I told myself that these people on their benches and cushions were practitioners of Zen, every one of them far more experienced than me; they aimed to get so deep into their unconscious that they wouldn’t flinch if someone were to cough or a phone happened to ring, could tolerate an itch or an ache in the knee or the cold air nibbling at their shoulder without squirming. Lotus had shared with us her experience of solitary retreat - three months she had spent in a room alone, no books, no media, no human contact. Even her meals were delivered through a slot in the door to prevent her having to look another being in the face. She had experienced the Vietnam War as a child; she had to heal, and she did. 

Later, though, I realize I was disrespectful to arrive late, disrespectful to take a call. I wanted to apologize to Lotus afterwards - I’m on call, I got a call, I’m sorry but I had to take it - but wouldn’t that be more about drawing attention to myself, to the importance of my job, than anything? I simply shouldn’t have arrived late, shouldn’t have gone at all when on call, really, being bound to something other than the experience at hand, the present moment. 

I want to achieve enlightenment, I do. I want to let go of everything and just be, until I can be no more. I want people who’ve worked harder at this than I have, who’ve studied and lectured and posted videos and spent three months meditating to share their wisdom with me. Also, for now, I have to be on call every third or fourth Saturday, and I have to answer when my children need me. Have to or want to? I want to have all these worldly things, money and comfort and relationships, and also to give it all up. I want to participate but on my terms.

Lotus starts another talk, though the course has officially ended. Her Zoom screen is baffling to her, again. 

“Somebody help me - I’m in Safe Driving Mode and I don’t know how to shut it off!” she laughs.

And I want to be like her. And this is the sign of a good teacher, a good therapist, a good fit between student and teacher, between patient and therapist, I think. But whatever. I must try to improve. I must take what comes.

Clear Way Zen meets at Knox Metropolitan United Church in Regina, from 10:30 am until noon every Saturday.