98 BUDDHADHARMA: THE PRACTITIONER'S QUARTERLY
assertiveness over receptivity. Is grief seen as feminine? Does it fem-
inize us to feel it, and is that one of the reasons some are afraid of it?
Anger tends to feel for (I don’t like what is happening to you and I
want to change it), while sorrow tends to feel with (Your pain is my
pain, and I care about it). Feeling for and feeling with complement
each other. If we valued both, we’d be able to employ fire or water
according to need. They could temper each other and combine in
as-yet-unimagined and powerful ways. Each of us would be able to
draw on more of ourselves in response to the crisis; each of us would
have more with which to strengthen and console ourselves. We see
the results of fiery action all around us, for good and for ill. I’m
wondering if at least some of the burning rage so characteristic of our
time is actually a defense against grief. I’m wondering if free-float-
ing, unacknowledged sorrow is a larger influence in our communal
life than we give it credit for. If that’s true, perhaps we should spend
some time with sorrow and grief and mourning, here at the end of
the world.GRIEF IS A BUDDHA. Not something to learn lessons from but the
way it is sometimes, the spirit and body of a season in the world, a
season of the heart–mind. Grief is a buddha, joy is a buddha, anger
is a buddha, peace is a buddha. In the koans, we’re meant to become
intimate with all the buddhas—to climb into them, let them climb
into us, burn them for warmth, make love with them, kill them, find
one sitting in the center of the house. You’re not meant to cure the
grief buddha, nor it you. You’re meant to find out what it is to be
part of a season of your heart–mind, a season in the world, that has
been stained and dyed by grief, made holy by grief.
A long time ago, a young woman is lost in mourning after the
death of her husband. She leaves everything behind and goes to a
monastery to ask for help. “What is Zen?” A teacher replies that the
heart of the one who asks is Zen: her broken heart is the buddha
of that time and place. She decides to stay and find out what that
means. Sitting in the dark, the woman runs her fingers over the face