March 21, 2024

Immovable

My wife and I slept in this morning, and when we awoke, we went outside to watch the sun peering through the grove. It was beautiful, but cold, so we went back inside and made some coffee, drinking it on the couch as we talked. My wife had the day off, but I had a busy day of work ahead of me.

My morning was hectic, and by the time I looked up from my desk, it was time for lunch. I drove to the Piggly Wiggly in Bailey and picked up some beef short ribs for the evening. We had plans for barbecue and some quality time by the fire. Before my lunch break ended, I took a quick walk into the woods to get some fresh air before diving back into my work. When I arrived at the creek, a pair of mallards swimming in the stream surprised me. This was the first time I saw ducks in this area. They really were beautiful creatures, especially the males with their emerald green head and bright blue feathers on the lower part of their wings.

I made a stop at Beaver Tooth Rock. When I entered the woods, it was drizzling, but now it was raining harder. Despite the weather, I sat down to rest, watching the rain fall. This week, there was a lot of pressure at work, and I wondered why such things created stress. I remembered a Japanese concept called Fudoshin, which translated as “immovable mind”. This was the notion that with training, the mind could prevent falling prey to things that caused stress. In such a state, one could remain impervious to pressure, remaining as emotionally stable as the large rock I was sitting on.

While pondering the subject of an immovable mind, I realized stress entered our minds when we had negative thoughts. That was, when we ruminated on our experiences, we were prone to think negatively, which triggered physiological mechanisms that disrupted our emotions. It was this disturbance that caused the negative emotions we perceived as stress. The key, I decided, was to stop ruminating on those things that were prone to creating pressure. Most of the things we dwelled on were scenarios we imagined, and not experiences that had actually occurred.

This closely connected to a Japanese concept called Mushin, or empty mind. Having an empty mind was the practice taught to me in my martial arts training, where we tapped into a mental level beyond, or rather beneath, conscious thought. This practice of not consciously grabbing onto thoughts was precisely the state of a mind that could become impervious, or immovable. These practices, fudoshin and mushin, I decided, would become the focus of my current development.

My wife was also under a lot of pressure with her graduate program, which was basically a full-time job with a full load of studies. She had been trudging through this program for twenty months now, and the physical and cognitive demands kept the students in the program on edge. I noticed, however, I always had useful advice for her. When someone you love needs support, the path to help them was always remarkably clear. But, when we, ourselves, felt stressed, the advice that comes so easily to help others often falls on our own deaf ears and blind eyes. Why was that? Why were we unlikely to give ourselves good advice and follow it?

I decided a good practice would be to place a person we cared about in our scenario and write what advice we would give to that person. Then, we should take that list and apply it to our own life. I went back to work in a pensive state, curious to see how I could work with these ideas and how they would affect my state of mind. Work was busy, but I was fine. While the day didn’t end in the most comfortable of situations, I felt like I had done everything that could be done. And for once, that felt like enough.

My wife spent part of her day working in the forest. After my work was done, she invited me into the woods to see what she had done. There was a special area in the forest behind our backyard that sloped down and out of view from the house. The trees in the area were very peculiar. They were windswept, full of bright green mosses, and surround by large stones. The entire scene reminded me of an Oregon wetland or Japanese garden. My wife began clearing a trail in the area, and we had plans to plant flowers and other flora. We also wanted to place a sitting bench in the area, so we could have a nice place to relax that was secluded but close to the house.

After we returned from the woods, I cut some firewood and started a fire. My wife joined me on the rear deck and we sipped cold beers while watching the flames dance. Tonight, there was no music, just the sounds of the fire crackling, birds singing, and frogs croaking in the distance. Once the grilling was done, we took the food inside to eat. To my surprise, my wife added a few pieces of wood to the fire before we went inside the house. I asked what she was doing, and she said she wanted to keep the fire going for me, so I could sit outside for a bit after dinner while she soaked in the tub. What a perfect partner.

After we ate, my wife went to bathe, and I found myself back outside by the fire, sitting underneath the stars, staring up into the sky. I added a few more pieces of wood, enough to cover the slow sipping of whiskey as I thought about my wife. Life really was so much better when shared with someone. Not just anyone, but a person who loved me just the way I was, and whom I adored just the way she was. Life had taught us both that you can only feel safe when the person you love allows you to be completely vulnerable and then fiercely protects that sacred place.

The moon rose steadily, moving up from the east horizon; the stars twinkled against the black sky.