75. What’s that mean?

When I was very little, I got my milk and cookie ready and put on my Mouseketeer ears in front of the TV set, because it was time for the Mickey Mouse Club! I knew that on each day of the week a different variety feature was coming on the show. At the start, in a big song and dance number, the emcee would tell us what day it was, and announce it was Special Guest Day or whatever.  “Hey kids, it’s (Tues)day, do you know what that means?!” My answer to his question was always “No, what does it mean?” I must have been reluctant to sing along with the kids on TV, thinking I was being funny. Or maybe I was a philosopher even then. 

Nowadays, a certain TV production company’s on-screen logo is a picture of a boy pointing at a tree on a distant hill, and the kid’s voice asks, “What’s that mean?” Stupid question? Impertinent? No, to me it's thought provoking. But I believe my answer is still “I don't know.” Sure, I get that it’s a reference to the crafts of script writing and cinematography, how they endeavor to make a story flow out of filmed images.  But gosh, what does a tree mean? Yeah, yeah, and if it falls in the forest and no one's there, does it make a sound?

As an exercise, I’ve tried saying “I don’t know what that means” about each of the things I see around me in the room. I was attempting to understand what the wise ones teach, that nothing really has meaning other than what I assign to it. I look at an old chair over by the window. That it was Grandma’s, or made of red oak 100 years ago, or doesn’t exactly match the refinished table because it was exposed to the weather… these are all stories I’ve attached to the chair to make it special to me, harder to live without, more flattering to my ego so I have a cool story to tell. But really, it’s a chunk of wood that was chopped up and then glued together for a utilitarian purpose. But even saying that is giving it some special meaning. I could also see it as a loosely packed wad of atomic energy that only exists because I am looking for it, in the quantum physics sense. I can feel some of you there smirking. Yes, I know it's true, I am also a loosely packed wad of something-or-other. As with most things I own, I could cite that chair’s pedigree and provenance. I take pride in saying that everything in this room is handmade, inherited, or collected in some special time and place. But why did I let that cumbersome mountain of information become so important? Holy cow, this is a hard exercise!

I’m definitely not prepared to let go of the meaning of everything. Maybe I just start by weeding it out a little, and not necessarily permanently. An heirloom is fun to know about, right? On the other hand, why would I retain the life story of that half-roll of masking tape over there? Do I really need to recall where I bought it and when I used it last? And why hold onto that feeling of frustration because I couldn’t find the end of the roll? Such mind clutter!

People yearn to classify everything in complex relationship systems. Look at the way biologists have divided the living species into a staggering number of kingdoms, classes, species, subspecies, etc. We do the same with every profession... the sciences, medicine, mystical arts, law, economics, and so on. Facts are fine, but I am becoming wary of someone with a well-schooled background in their field of study. Do I need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows? Apologies to the doctors, financial advisors, astrologers, theologians, and pundits... I love you all, but I rather enjoy the guy who was once a noted expert, but now says he's been to the promised land and has returned with the good news that none of that shit matters.

I’m told that a “detached observer” can take in what is seen without taking part in its drama, or explaining the mechanism by which it came to exist, or labelling it with judgements. For example, it’s possible to see my honeysuckle vine without reciting which variety of the plant it is, or fret about how soon the bloom will fade, or refer to my notes about when it should be pruned. I don’t not rake up the spent flowers, or not prune the vine. But how great it is just to be in this moment with it, and let go of the “story” of the plant. Piece of cake, right? Well, no, it certainly takes a fair amount of mind-stilling and breath-watching to get even a smidgin of detachment.  The idea is to still my tendency to string one thought to another and wind up with a bird-walkopedia inside the head, meanwhile missing the here and now.  

So, what am I getting at? What does this mean?

As I was reading aloud what I’d written up to this point, I asked my daughter Rebecca for perspective to help wrap up this topic. She’s so wise. She put a point on it for me: By letting go of judgements, attachments, definitions and the belief in separation, we can get a tiny peek at what is really there. Even if for only a moment, there is great value in seeing divine and peaceful oneness—the truth of you and me and everything. Now, that’s something that means something.