He Raises Little Dust

Years past I had the opportunity to study with a Japanese Zen/Taoist master. I spent an hour or so with him every week for a few months, trying to get a grip on life, the world, my place in it. Like many Zen adepts, he loved ambiguity and the inherent indescribability of the universe. He answered questions indirectly, if at all. Often his look was the only response. 

Occasionally I would encounter a man studying with the master at the same time, and we would have tea together. His calmness and peace, his serenity, his gentleness and obvious care for others were amazing. These were traits I very much wanted, and raised the matter with the master. His comment: “Those traits already exist within you. Do not seek to acquire. Search for what you must get rid of to reveal them.”

At our next session, the master was slightly more responsive regarding his other student. The first words were, “He raises little dust.” Mystified, I asked what he meant. “Simple is better than complex. He exists easily in the world. Spend the week meditating on that.” I worked hard on this puzzle, meditating every day in a mindless space. Late in the week, I realized that the man had few or no encumbrances, attachments, or emotionally-infused opinions. Seeking this state myself, I asked him how he arrived at his peace and ease with the world.

“Like a sculptor who saw a block of marble and removed all the unnecessary material, that is what I had to do with myself. I was carrying the weight of all the world, angry at this, frustrated at that, fearful of yet another thing. Nothing went right. To accomplish anything, even the smallest, I felt I had to move mountains, to exert great effort. Everything had to be forced to get what I wanted. At least that is what I thought. I saw the world as resisting me everywhere, exhausting me, emotionally and physically, as I tried to bring it in line with my needs. My wife and family were getting extremely tired of my behavior. But my work with the master brought me to the realization that the fear, anger, frustrations, and unhealthy needs came from within me. I needed only to give that up.”

As I had more conversations with him, I began to see what “raising little dust” meant. He was wide-open, willingly vulnerable, yet without fear. His humility stood out dramatically. He possessed few opinions and those he held lightly, even when important to him. He said that he no longer argued with anyone, seeking instead to engage in understanding. Creating emotional and intellectual safety for the other person mattered a great deal to him. His gentle curiosity about the world and people in it were remarkable. Watching as he interacted with me I could see that he flowed as easily through conversations as water through a channel. I once mentioned that he seemed to embody the Tao. He thanked me, and said, “Early on I was encumbered in all kinds of ways with harmful emotional junk. Losing most of that took ten, often painful and frustrating years. I am thankful to have achieved some modest success.” I have not yet met another like him.

These conversations had a big impact on me. I wanted badly to live lightly in myself and in the world. But the doing was far harder than his caution implied. Even small bits of progress were long in coming. And the work goes on yet. It seems that we become better in the sense of living lighter and being more at peace by becoming less. All areas of life, intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual, may need pruning, allowing us to remove our fears, attachments, unhealthy needs, mis-perceptions, and defenses. Above all perhaps, it seems that we must rid ourselves of any need for the world, and other people, to do our bidding, likely our biggest and most unhealthy attachment.

If I have learned anything over the years from this early interaction, it is that we already are what we want to be, an aspect of Eastern wisdom. We have little need to add anything. The challenge is identifying and removing the undesirable accretions adopted over the years, as we would the barnacles on a ship’s hull that impede its speed and functioning. And it is a huge challenge, entailing great courage to even uncover aspects that we would prefer to leave deeply buried. Equally difficult, and far longer lasting, is the effort to overcome decades of severe “dust-kicking.” But the man I met showed that it is doable, if we have the will.