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The Koan of Fussing [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2024-01-14  

We don’t have to be a fussbudget like Lucy to others or to yourself. In particular you don’t have to make a big production of koans, of training, of awakening. We can accept the world. We can accept ourselves. We can stop fussing over everything. Thus.

I Worried

Mary Oliver

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers flow in the right direction, will the earth turn as it was taught, and if not how shall I correct it? Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven, can I do better? Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows can do it and I am, well, hopeless. Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it, am I going to get rheumatism, lockjaw, dementia? Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing. And gave it up. And took my old body and went out into the morning, and sang.

As an English choir director once put it, and Rev. Abbess Jiyu Kennett liked to repeat,

Those as can sing, will sing. Those as can’t, will make a joyful noise unto the Lord.

Psalm 100

I knew a serious fussbudget who was making excellent progress in Zen training, except when self arose and demanded that she couldn’t. She somehow learned in childhood that some people were worthy, talented, likable, popular, and she wasn’t. She was bright and competent at many things, but always felt that she was a fraud. This is well known in psychology as Imposter Syndrome,

a psychological occurrence in which people doubt their skills, talents, or accomplishments and have a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as frauds.[1] Despite external evidence of their competence, those experiencing this phenomenon do not believe they deserve their success or luck. They may incorrectly attribute it to the Matthew effect or the Dunning–Kruger effect, or they may think that they are deceiving others because they feel as if they are not as intelligent as they outwardly portray themselves to be.[2] Impostor syndrome can stem from and result in strained personal relationships and can hinder people from achieving their full potential in their fields of interest.[3]

They may also blame the whole problem on other people feeling superior to them, no matter how much those others may protest and even demonstrate that it isn’t so.

So be as nice to others as you can, even if the others don’t like it. Sometimes it works,

There was a man with tongue of wood, Who essayed to sing, And in truth it was lamentable. But there was one who heard This clip-clapper of this tongue of wood And knew what the man Wished to sing, And with that the singer was content.

Stephen Crane

and if it doesn’t, well, it doesn’t cost you anything.

Zen masters could blame themselves that they can’t rescue everyone who comes for help, and complain at themselves endlessly. But that would, in general, be self. They can decide instead that they need more training, and get down to it, as Dogen Zenji once declared, when he found two monks in the kitchen fighting with knives. He then left, and started another monastery, Eiheiji, deep in the mountains.

So much of the world is given over to fussing. We don’t have to add to it. We can just hold out a hand to those who make their own lives a living Hell.

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