Our world is entering a period of darkness. The death of democracy, the natural world, and human extinction are all on the table right now. Multiple Indigenous and spiritual cultures speak of vast cosmological cycles that move from light to dark to light, ignorance to awakening, over and over again, planes of existence and transcendence outside the tightly constricted boundaries of 21st century urban-capitalist-colonialist consciousness. I say this not to inject fear or for hyperbolic sensationalism, but to invite us to be present with what is, to embrace the dark so that we can balance our psyches and enter a deeper peace with the mystical and transcendental.
Last fall I entered a Masters of Divinity program at Maitripa College in Portland, Oregon. I’m not necessarily looking for a new career, or more letters after my name, but more immediately as a way to be useful, a way to serve, a way to heal myself through being fully present to others in whatever traumas we may collectively face in this brief moment of our current incarnations. The school is one of the key loci of my spiritual community – a profound and magical opportunity to be with others seeking to deepen their capacity to engage in the three pillars of scholarship, meditation, and service upon which Maitripa was founded.
During the school year, I commute to Portland, often by Amtrak, riding an e-bike across town after de-training at Union Station in PDX. The landscape of the northwest is beautiful. On any given morning, I catch glimpses of Mount Tahoma, Lawetlatla and Wyeast (Indigenous names for Rainier, Saint Helens, and Hood). My spirit stirs and I reach for an imagined paddle as we cross over many rivers I’ve paddled down – Duwamish, Green, Cowlitz, Toutle, Columbia, Willamette. My eyes feast on the green fields, blue skies emerging from valley fog, red sunsets, or a pale winter’s moon sinking in the west at dawn.
The train left the station on time on this particular day on my return to Seattle at the end of a long day – normally a three-and-a-half-hour journey in which I often catch up on next week’s assignments on my laptop. If all goes smoothly, I reach Seattle by 930pm and am home by 945pm after a short bike ride in the dark, bundled up against the cold. We had just pulled out of Tacoma station around 830pm when the train abruptly came to a halt. I could smell the acrid odor of burning brake fluid, and I knew immediately what had happened. Trains never slam on the brakes like that unless they’ve hit something and usually it’s a person who inevitably is now dead.
Was it suicide or carelessness? We’ll probably never know. This was my second Amtrak trip within 3 or 4 months when the train hit a person. Within moments, the conductor made an announcement that “a trespasser” was struck on the tracks and a fatality had resulted and that we would be delayed an indeterminate length of time. I reflected on the sanitized language used – “trespasser” rather than human being, “fatality”, rather than dead or died. Society’s conditioned response to death is to package it, embalm it, hide from it, wall us off from the profound and urgent truth that connects us all.
Minutes slipped into hours. There were only a couple of tourists from Czech Republic in my car. They seemed to be engaged in lighthearted conversation, so I just sat there with my private thoughts, attempting to process the reality of what had just happened. Every 15 or 20 minutes, an announcement came over the intercom – “passengers are invited to grab free water bottles and snacks in the café car”, or “thank you for your patience, we will keep you updated on the schedule.”
Western culture in particular is hyper-individualistic. In most spaces, there is no common framework for community that allows us to connect and relate with other people when tragedies strike. Just on the level of physical dimensionality, that is difficult on a train due to its layout – there’s not really a possibility for a healing circle in a long narrow rectilinear collection of passenger cars. Nonetheless, imagination could create possibilities if there was a will for it. But even on the emotional level, our society generally doesn’t know how to grieve. The emotion of grief seems scary. Who will hold me when I break down and cry? If the answer is nobody, the tears will remain bottled up. I noticed the urge to cry for the tragedy of a life lost, but there I was, alone in my seat in an almost empty passenger car, alone in my narrowly defined ego-centric world wondering how long the delay would be, what time I would arrive home? Meanwhile, someone’s mind stream had just departed their former human body and was now in the bardo, perhaps confused and terrified by visions of their next life, grieving the loss of their former human body. I speak from a Buddhist lens which acknowledges the mind goes on at death, led inexorably by the definite laws of karma.
I took my prayer beads out of my pocket and recited many rounds of various mantras, sending the enlightened vibrations into the world, to whomever might be able to receive them. Then the thought occurred to me – “how is it going for the train crew?” I remembered the woman in the café car back at Portland Union Station who dispensed boiling water for my thermos without charging me a dime. She called me “hon” and smiling, wished me a pleasant ride. I got up and walked to the cafe car, intending to check in with her. I knew she was on duty and was careful to pick a moment when it wasn’t busy as she was probably well practiced in bottling up her feelings. Almost certainly they have protocols for these situations and all of them initially are likely focused on caring for passengers rather than processing internal grief. Those resources are available for Amtrak employees later, but initially, they put on the best face they can manage and serve. There was only one other person in the café car, and he was getting ready to leave so I stepped to the counter. “How can I help you hon?” she asked me. “I would be ever so grateful for some more hot water” I said. “Absolutely”, she said, reaching for a cup to fill.
“How are you doing?” I asked, using a tone of voice that was calm and focused. There was no ambiguity regarding the context of my inquiry. I continued…“this probably happens a lot and I’m guessing that it’s not easy to process at times”. Her demeanor instantly changed, as if dropping her guard down and letting her get in touch with the well of grief. “This happens a lot, especially in this area near Tacoma.” Keeping it conversational, I told her that it was the second time for me in 4 months. “I knew what had happened as soon as I felt the brakes slam on”. “Same for me”, she replied. “As soon as I felt the brakes, I sat down and said a prayer. But then I got back up and prepared myself to serve the customers.”
Sometime later, I had a similar, even more brief version of the same conversation with the conductor as she walked through the train checking on passengers. In both encounters, my care recipients did not break down in tears or begin to verbalize the wider layers of societal trauma that pervades our world – and I’m glad that didn’t happen. Under the circumstances, it would have been unskillful to trigger such a response as they had jobs to do, people to serve in the middle of a crisis. But perhaps in those brief interactions, the ability to be present for another and fully see them, acknowledge their difficulty, and allow them to be heard, made a difference in their lives, giving them the courage to face grief and trauma when the time is right.
The train was delayed for 3 hours and 50 minutes. We pulled into Seattle just after 1:00 a.m. As I walked down the platform, I saw the woman from the café car and another woman employee share a hug. In the morning, I spoke with a friend and processed my own grief a bit further. My grief is but a drop in the ocean of samsara’s grief. In grieving we lose our separate selves and connect to our shared humanity. As Buddhists we get a glimpse of Dharmakaya mind that knows no separation, or in Indigenous spirituality, I imagine it is akin to connecting with the Great Spirit that pervades all. We become part of Nature, not separate from it. May all beings be at peace. May they be free from suffering. May they know the truth of non-separateness.
Thank you for this beautiful reflection brother. As you know, I often did that same commute back in the day. I could see you very clearly in my imagination, on that train reciting mantras and kindly engaging the crew.
I never had the experience of us hitting someone in my days of commuting, I wonder what has changed (well, that is sort of rhetorical since your intro lays it out).
I’m rejoicing that you’re doing the program at Maitripa!
PS – if you aren’t familiar with Frances Weller’s work on grief, I highly recommend it. I’ve been running groups the past 4 years using it as a framework. Our cultural dissociation from grief is surely a big part of how we can stand by and watch so much destruction happen right in front of our eyes.
Good to hear from you Steven. I was hoping that I’d see you at the conference in March. Very timely that you mentioned Frances Weller, and perhaps you picked up on it, Leigh had just assigned his podcast interview on Tricycle with Sharon Salzburg and James Shaheen (https://tricycle.org/podcast/francis-weller/). I’m experiencing a bit of time warp/memory loss, but I either listened to the podcast immediately before or after writing this piece. This also reminds me of our attempt to connect on a wilderness walkabout several years ago. I get my cosmic/nature fix on the water mostly these days, perhaps you’ve found that connection in the forested hills of Vermont.
Beautifully written, Jordan. The kind of reflection I carry with me.
Yay. Jane – you are always an inspiration to me!