4 Min read

Alternate title: The Buddhist, the Catholic, and the Dying Man

Poetry for Emergencies

On happiness and desire

On reputation

Bar joke – in Footnotes 😉

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It sounds like a bar joke but it’s better, because there’s more to this than a punchline.

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The Monk shares a lesson from Buddha who said that many people confuse desire with happiness.

Siddhartha (560 BC to 483 BC) had been a prince and “had tasted a life of trying to satisfy desires,” then learned that true happiness is a life with few desires, few possessions, and the time to enjoy the many wonders in us and around us.

When the mind is desiring, we are aware of the presence of that state of mind. “This is the mind longing for wealth.” ” This is the mind desiring reputation.” When the mind isn’t desiring, it’s important to observe that the desiring mind is not present. “This is the sense of ease that accompanies the absence of a mind desiring wealth.” ” This is the sense of ease that accompanies the absence of a mind desiring reputation.”

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The Nun shares a story while praying the breviary.

While in prayer, she received an image of a house and a man came knocking at the door, a very nice man who she asked in. She welcomed him to go where he liked and showed him the rooms.

There were many of them and they were very pretty. Suddenly he came upon a locked door. On the door in large dark type was PRIVATE PROPERTY–DO NOT ENTER. He turned to me, and as he turned, I recognized him to be Jesus. He asked me, “Briege, why can’t I go in this room?”

She explained that she had already given so much to Him and wanted to keep a little something for myself. She didn’t know what was in the room, and the Lord said he would show her.

Inside that room was my reputation, what others thought of me. I didn’t want Jesus in that room because I was preserving my good name and my reputation.

Why? because the Nun believed others would think she was nuts when they learned about her gift of healing.

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The Poet writes about death.

Here are three stanzas from his poem, Why I Like the Hospital.

Because it is all right to be in a bad mood there,

slouching along through the underground garage,

riding wordlessly on the elevator with the other customers,

staring at the closed beige doors like a prison wall.

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but I like the way some people on their plastic chairs

break out a notebook and invent a complex scoring system

to tally up their days on earth,

the column on the left that says, Times I Acted Like a Fool,

facing the column on the right that says, Times I Acted LIke a Saint.

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And once I saw a man in a lime-green dressing gown,

hunched over in a chair; a man who was not

yelling at the doctors, or pretending to be strong,

or making a murmured phone call to his wife,

but one sobbing without shame,

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What’s the “punchline” and why these three?

The Monk’s story I read during a restless night, around four or five in the morning. The Nun’s story I had read years ago, but pulled from the shelf to revisit. And, the Poet’s book was a Christmas gift.

The Monk and the Nun discuss reputation, the desire and concern we have about what others think of us. The Poet wrote during his struggle with pancreatic cancer what it’s like to be in the hospital. He faces sickness and death, and reports that the dying may not care what others think.

When are we truly ourselves, less concerned with wealth and reputation? At Death’s door? With family, with close friends?

I saw aspects of myself in each of the accounts, not in a good way. When I let go of worrying about reputation, I write with relative ease.

The Monk, the Nun, and the Poet helped me muster the courage to share. With their help, I worry less what others think and focus more on getting my story out there. This is the year of action.

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The Monk is Thich Nhat Hanh and this passage is from, How to Relax (2015), a bedside counselor of sorts, a pocket essential from his popular series. How to Love, How to Sit, How to Fight, etc.

The Nun is Sister Briege McKenna, O.S.C. originally from County Armagh, Ireland. Dear reader, I’m not sure how you feel about such things, but Sr. Briege has a Wiki page and had suffered from rheumatoid arthritis as a youth, but was cured of that debilitating disease. She is alive as of this letter, with a worldwide ministry, known for her miracles of healing and spiritual gifts. Briege McKenna’s Miracles Do Happen is the book I had read years ago, a birthday gift for my husband from a faithful and well-meaning colleague. She is one of the best people you will ever meet.

The Poet is Tony Hoagland and the poem is from his posthumous book, Turn Up the Ocean (2022). The collection was an intimate and raw take on the world from a dying man. It might be the book I read–in the way it feels after getting hit hard in the gut– as someone suffering from cancer.

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My News: It’s official– I signed the publication agreement for my book, Raising Athena. Stay tuned for updates as I share with you here in TreeHouseLetter.

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If you enjoy TreeHouseLetter, please share with those who love words and good writing.

I am grateful to you, family and friends and readers.

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FOOTNOTES

And not to disappoint, from Perplexity.AI is today’s bar joke.

A Monk, a Nun, and a Poet Walk into a Bar…

A monk, a nun, and a poet walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, “What is this, some kind of joke?”

The monk replies, “I seek inner peace.”
The nun adds, “I seek divine guidance.”
The poet mumbles, “I seek another drink.”

The bartender, intrigued, asks, “And what will you have?”

The monk says, “Water – transformed into wine would be nice.”
The nun requests, “A modest glass of communion wine.”
The poet slams his hand on the bar and declares, “Whiskey. Neat. Like my metaphors.”

As they sit together, the monk meditates, the nun contemplates, and the poet starts scribbling on a napkin. The bartender shakes his head and mutters, “This is definitely going in my memoir.”

SOURCE: Perplexity.AI