Fire Monks by Colleen Morton Busch Read Free Book Online

meditation: Listen, everyone. Birth and death is given once. This moment now is gone. Awake each one awake. Don’t waste this life . The mallet had worn a deep groove into the faded word now .
    They need not panic, she assured them, thinking of the effect of the sheriff’s request. It would be days, maybe weeks, before the fire actually arrived. The important thing was just to do what they could in each moment to make Tassajara safe. Look around you, she encouraged the few dozen residents who remained, students and staff included. That broom you see leaning up against a building? Don’t wait for someone else to move it. Make it your responsibility. A single spark can change everything.
    Don’t worry, she said again. “We are safe at Tassajara. They’ll throw most of us out long before there’s any chance of danger, and if they think there’s any real danger to life, they’ll make everyone leave.” Specific tasks could be figured out later, as well as who might stay for the duration. But first, people needed to know that they were not in immediate danger.
    David asked the residents to return to the student eating area after packing a bag and gathering their emergency contact numbers. The work leader would wait there to collect the information for the sheriff’s deputy.
    â€œDoes anyone have questions?” he asked.
    There were more than he had answers for. If it’s a mandatory evacuation, then why are we allowed to stay? When will we know if fire crews are coming down here? What if I stay now but decide to leave later? Will the stage be running? Someone from the kitchen crew was worried about getting lunch out, even though the guests were gone. What about the schedule?
    Each new student is given a copy of the monastic regulations when they arrive at Tassajara—rules that help the monks live together “in mutual respect, peace, and harmony.” The first item listed is a “commitment to completely follow the zendo schedule.” This means be on time for morning meditation. In fact, be early. Be in your seat five minutes before the final roll-down on the han signaling the start of the officiating priest’s morning offering rounds. Be on time for work. Be on time. Be in time.
    It may sound confining, but the schedule is not intended to restrict. It’s meant to release. Without a schedule, you have to wonder what you should be doing from one moment to the next. Should you wake up now or roll over and go back to sleep? Preferences must be weighed, decisions constantly confronted. And since reality does not align itself with personal preferences, organizing yourself to support them is usually an invitation to suffering.
    Zen has a solution to this problem: “The great way is not difficult, just avoid picking and choosing.” Just follow the schedule. Take up the tasks of whatever position you’ve been assigned, without being tugged around by likes and dislikes, and stop when the bell rings. Cook. Clean. Serve meals. Turn compost. Trim candles. Scrub toilets. Sit meditation. One is not higher than the other. A Zen student undertakes work as a practice—this is in the rules, too—“by entering deeply and wholeheartedly into the work given us to do.”
    That afternoon at the work circle, David told the residents, “We have a lot of hard, physical labor ahead of us. We’re going to need as much help as we can get. But it’s important that you understand: If you choose to stay, you’re choosing to defend Tassajara if the fire comes while you’re here.”
    At that meeting, some residents decided to leave. One student who stayed noted how still and in-between Tassajara felt then. “It was as if the set for a play had suddenly been stripped from the stage,” she told me. Her head ached and her lungs felt heavy. She knew that the smoke was only likely to worsen and that she should probably leave, too, but she