It is winter 1994 and I am living on Richard Rose’s farm. It seems I’ve left behind all that matters in life – 500 miles from friends in North Carolina and 300 miles from Kentucky family – yet I’ve left nothing. My past is an empty glass that can not fill a need to know – to know what I am, if there is any part of me that is solid, eternal, or if I am only a passing cloud of flesh and thought. Such is the disgruntled core of my spiritual search.
There is little finding occurring, however. My days are an endless round of reading, meditation, and conversation with a few other fools and friends living here. Between these rounds, we split wood for the stove, cook, clean, and otherwise consume the days. Our lives are very simple – think, look within, survive – and the winter is very gray.
Simple and gray is a particular life and light that reveals uncompromising facts: that life is without meaning until you find solid ground within; that finding such certainty is seemingly impossible.
This is depressing. Time to go see the guru, I say. The next day, I spy Mr. Rose’s brown van parked at the farmhouse. I trudge down the hill determined to present my undeniable case of frustration.
He probably knew something was eating at me. Let’s take a walk, he says, so we plunge across a field thick with a foot and a half of snow. We don’t say much other than huff and puff, till we reach the shelter of a building.
I begin a fragmented recounting of my ills, following Mr. Rose around the building as he examines various decrepit pieces of furniture and equipment. I’m not sure he’s even listening as I explain my frustrations, my lack of hope, and sense of helplessness. It doesn’t matter. As I’m speaking, it becomes clearer and clearer the answer is already in my possession. As my inner tension evaporates, I blurt out the last terrible truth, “If I could think of someplace to go, I would. I’d leave.”
I have exposed my great doubt to the teacher. He doesn’t even look at me. He sort of chuckles lightly, as to himself, and keeps looking over his collection of clutter.
In that moment, I knew there was nowhere to go, nothing other than this search. Every place and effort was empty. That in itself is the finding of a truth.
It is winter 2005 and I don’t remember for sure, but I think that I smiled a bit at that realization. Looking back, I see Mr. Rose’s chuckle was the perfect response, that any action other than seeking is laughable, and you know this.
Life is simple and gray, whether or not you are a seeker. It is colored and complicated by forgetfulness, by misplaced love.
If you will live simply and not deny the starkness that surrounds you, you will find the strength to discover what you truly want.