afraid

Early in my monastic training, a teacher suggested the question “what am I afraid of?” as a life koan. In the Japanese Zen tradition, a koan is a question for which there’s no logical answer; it contains the essence of existence, the key to awakening. One Zen teacher explain that

“… koans are not answered, but resolved. To work on a koan is to let a koan work on you. Do not waste any time trying to figure the koan out. Let it stretch your mind through the questioning alone, make no effort to solve it. Any analysis is a waste of time.”

Once more: “what am I afraid of?” — this time in light of this continuing unwillingness to open the hands of love (see yesterdays post). What frightens me to let go of something that cannot be held?

Henri Nouwen poses a similar question in connection with the fear to pray. “When you want to pray, the first question is: How do I open my closed hands? Certainly not by … a forced decision. Perhaps you can find your way to prayer by carefully listening to the words of the angel to … the frightened shepherds and the women at the tomb: ‘Don’t be afraid.’

“Don’t be afraid of the One who wants to enter your most intimate space and invite you to let go of what you are clinging to so anxiously. … Don’t be afraid to show your hate, bitterness, and disappointment to the One who is love and only love. Even if you know you have little to show, don’t be afraid to let it be seen.”

As I open my hands of fear I meet disappointment about broken promises. And the bitter taste of being abandoned once more by one who’d promised to hold hands and fall backwards into the unknown with me. And underneath that, barely glimpsed and resisting verbal expression, a shift from blaming to truth-seeking: a boy’s unattended grief over his mother’s sudden death and disappearance. One loss tears the scab off another. 

“Each time you dare to let go and surrender one of these many fears, your hands opens a little and your palms spread out in a gesture of receiving. You must be patient, of course, very patient, until your hands are completely open.”

source: Nouwen, H.J.M. (1972). With open hands. New York: Ballantine Books, pp. 6-7. image: planthealing.org

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