The sticky-wet wrenching end of the world.

The end of the world looks just like any other day. Today is a lovely day. The sun is out, the sky is blue, the clouds are white. And yet, in a way, I'm situated in the midst of an apocalypse of sorts. My life here in London is ending. This world's days are numbered. To be sure the city itself will still go on. Indeed it will hardly notice I've left. But the construction in which I live my daily existence is ever so surely coming apart at the seams. Every day I am confronted by unexpected last times and irrevokable changes.

Still the world looks the same as it ever does. And indeed what else could I expect? As Buddha noticed all those years ago, impermanence is the nature of everything. Still, it's a strange thing that the Mahayana tradition points this out, shows you the way out of that suffering, and then entices you to step back into the fire. Here's the exit door, but gee, isn't that burning room lovely? Boddhisattvas chose to stay because they love the world. That choice causes suffering, but isn't that always the cost of love?

So yes, the world continues to drop away. Our world here in London is closing down, collapsing into smaller and smaller pieces. It's like a tree growing in reverse, reverting back to a seed to await a rebirth in new soil. A month ago, our cats suddenly left us to fly across the ocean and sit out the upheaval from the relative safety of my parents' house. This was the event that seems to have truly shifted our perspective to the move. Before that it was abstract. Now it's here.

Last week I attended my last Thursday night zazen sitting with Manu & Sarita. They are in Vancouver for 2 weeks, so last week was the last session I would attend. Actually I was having a pretty miserable day anyway and I probably wouldn't have gone, but I'd feel bad just leaving without saying a proper farewell. I don't really do goodbyes very well. It's awkward and messy and uncomfortable. Still, I've been trying to be more accepting of the sticky bits of life, and it would be callous and selfish just to disappear.

It's funny, I don't really know them all that well, but they provided me with an important refuge at an important time. Inevitably my path is going to be a lot different that theirs, but I picked up a subtle and important experience there somewhere. Something about being able to drop definitions and expectations and simply enjoy breathing in the presence of others. I don't necessarily know where this path is going, but there is something important there and I'm grateful to them for giving me the opportunity to discover it. Hopefully, this new creature that was born in that world will survive the transition.

That's where the fear comes in. As with any fear of death, the end of this world brings forth the fear for the continuation of the self. The self that lives in this world is facing that death right now. Will the core survive, and if so, what is preserved and what is lost? This is the existential dilemma of the condemned. Indeed, its only the illusion of longevity which allows us to forget this question in our daily lives. Still, what can we do with it when the fear does arrive? I'm sure there are lots of answers. At the moment, I alternate between ignorance and melancholy. Ignorance for pragmatism, and melancholy when there is nothing to be done. Still, it's not a desperate kind of melancholy, more just a rainy afternoon. I've become more accepting of discomfort. One more observation from a new perspective.

This is a bit of a weird perspective I've been trying to adopt here. Trying to be both a scientist and a mystic is not a well-trodden path. At one level I can see a very clear synergy between the practice of science and the practice of zen. However, while the metaphor is apt and powerful, it is also incomplete. These ideas do not sit comfortably together. Like nearly matched overlays they can create a chaos of Moire-pattern turbulence, for these practices bring with them a host of competing and contradictory perspectives, dogmas, and ideals. One side's truth is the other's delusion. It's a tribute to plastic thinking that one can hold these contradictory views, but it always leaves one sitting in doubt. And perhaps that's a good thing. Doubt, after all, is the boogie man that keeps me probing. Not as comfortable as blind faith I suspect though.

Still, I've found that this path leaves me a bit uncomfortable in all camps. Chatting with more mainstream folks in both camps I've found that trying to forge this middle way is not terribly appreciated. Perhaps I'll expand on this topic more later, but I've found that both sides tend to have an overly reductionist view of the other. Both sides are quite attached to the literalist notions of fact, and truth. I've become aware that there is a pretty severe gap between the way science is taught and distributed to the masses and the way it is actually practiced. All of this is bubbling away while the world ends, but I don't think the subject is quite ripe yet. For the moment, suffice it to say that this path I'm on does look like it may be a bit lonely and rocky.

Still, it may be a path where I can do something important. Perhaps this discomfort is not for nothing. I was touched by a comment Manu made last Thursday in the discussion after the sitting. The subject of science had come up, and Manu said that he didn't understand what it was and used to dismiss it. But that through me, he had glimpsed that there is a sense of mystery to it. And perhaps that is the personal legacy I will leave behind here in London: to have given one fellow human being a glimpse that a scientific perspective is not necessarily a soulless one. A small victory I know, but it was well timed and provides some solace here at the end of things. Not meaning so much, for I think I'm tipping quite strongly toward nihilism these days. I'm not big on purpose or meaning, but this human connection does provide a comfort, and that too has value.