My Zen Buddhist Lawyer Friend
Do I know how to live a happy life? It’s doubtful, but I’ve been working on it.
There is a Buddhist temple in Rochester, which I’ve never seen. I only know about it second-hand — and hope it’s still thriving, because I know a boy who left his DC life on a civil service career path and moved to Rochester to study wisdom there. From civil service to monk in the space of months.
Maybe there’s something about working for the Feds, reading endless legal briefs and babble that drives people to drink and meditation. But Scot left an imprint on my life he’ll never know. My nickname for him — in his absence since — was my Zen Buddhist lawyer friend.
What originally brought me to DC was a job — getting the hell out of Miami. I’d served my five hard years and would have done anything to be quit of that place. I’d have sold Radio Shack stereos or used Yugos. Instead, I got to design site plans for Metro stations, only regretting when I’d stayed at that job long past when I should have. I’d completed close to a dozen or so — not too much different than being a civil service attorney, which I shared with Scot. He seemed moderately amused at my plight if not by the comparison.
I first met Scot while running the length of the National Mall at my noontime break. I caught up with him beside the stale, black waters of the Reflecting Pool. Under a canopy of trees. My memory. I used to watch kids wade the shallow black water in the summer, but far as I could tell it wasn’t particularly cool, and it seemed as foul as the Potomac passing sluggishly nearby. The reason it was black was from the chemicals used to kill the algae. Flushing the water evidently hadn’t occurred to the Park Service.
Other than my two kids, running was the best thing I had going in life, and being aware it was true, I took extra focus on training. It was something to prove to myself I had worth: I was a runner. Scot ran as well, but more to stay in shape, so I’d slow down when we ran together.
That first day, I came up on Scot and another dude, a talker who thought pretty highly of himself and his running. You meet these people who keep talking to ensure no one notices they aren’t as grand as they pretend. We all have our insecurities, even if we don’t always admit them.
So as we ran that day, I decided to pick up the pace ever so gradually until Scot’s companion was having a harder time breathing. I was as well, but I’d been training, so going into oxygen debt wasn’t a foreign feeling. I’m ashamed to admit, I proceeded to dust the boy. Scot hung back with him, never commenting.
The next time I met up with Scot, he was running alone, and he laughed about the previous day. My little taunt hadn’t gone unnoticed. But he also showed little interest in competing; he was fine keeping to his pace and seemed fine knowing I was faster. Scot knew running was important to me, and he left it at that. He was like that — and looking back, it seemed evident he already had the self awareness I expect Zen Buddhism inspires.
Off and on, Scot and I either ran into each other, or agreed to meet, but with enough time passing, while huffing through humid summers and freezing winter sessions, we became friends. Because he’d entered into a part of my life that was important to me? For my part, it was likely so. For Scot, I don’t know.
My impression was Scot ran for the discipline; I ran out of some necessity to compete that I couldn’t qualify. The thing was, I wasn’t a natural athlete by any stretch. With asthma since a kid, breathing was work for me. Quick enough leg turnover but poor oxygen take-up. I only improved by slow degree — and the hours of speedwork that eventually ruined my feet. But it fed something in me I needed.
Acquaintance means you know enough to recognize them, and even their names, which for me can be a challenge. Friend, on the other hand, means being glad to greet each other. I can’t claim more than I felt easy being around him — his dry humor — his take on what we both thought was going wrong with Ronald Reagan and his cronies. He was involved with enforcement issues for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — one of those federal agencies conservatives like the Koch brothers hate.
Mostly it was Scot’s willing nature to keep moving forward even if neither of us grasped fully what that entailed.
Pretense was a waste of breath with Scot, and I didn’t try to hide — beyond being miserable in my married life, which I shared with no one. What one doesn’t speak of can be just as revealing, though Scot never pried.
At the time, I had no idea he was interested in Zen. I believe we did talk about religion. It’s a popular subject for ex-Catholics like myself. Scot came from a Protestant family. I had the impression he felt something lacking in that regard. Later he admitted he struggled with a quandary about where he’d come from, but where one begins doesn’t predict where you’ll land.
Times at home when my wife and I were speaking to each other, I must have talked about Scot. Eventually, we visited his apartment (possibly in Adams Morgan) and he showed us the then newest technology in musical technology— the CD. Scot was a classical music guy — and he liked the full swell of symphonic sound, bass and timpani. “It’s as if you’re in the concert hall!” Today, when I read how vinyl is making a comeback, I just smile.
I’m sitting here writing tonight listening to Mark Knopfler’s Brothers in Arms being broadcast across the Internet on a Bose unit a fraction of the size of Scot’s living room speakers. I hope he’d appreciate Knopfler’s lyrics, though he was hardly a violent man, he of a heart to never kill a mosquito. Or, more truthfully, he’d approve of a passion for music. When we disagreed, it was never without affection on his part.
One day he mentioned he was attending a weekend retreat sponsored by a Buddhist center in Rochester. Out of the blue. On returning he said he was greatly impressed with Philip Kapleau, the center’s founder. Shortly, Scot had attended several more, and soon after he made plans to move north. Just like that. He had this need, and he planned to do something about it. Unlike too many of us who bumble along wishing but not doing what our heart tells us.
I’ve had periods in my life like that — in the days I ran with Scot, I knew I needed to strike out for something better.
Admittedly, my need to design more than Metro stations, and striking out to do that, isn’t the same as leaving your profession, the one you studied years for, and giving up a comfortable life to study the work of dharma — my weak attempt at describing it. Like a Catholic who takes vows for the priesthood, Scot removed himself from the wider society — or that’s how I saw it.
I don’t remember the last time I saw him.
Though, somewhat ironically, Scot and I are still connected through Zen’s powerful influence on Japanese architecture. In the Edo Period, the temples, even villas such as at Katsura in Kyoto, were raised to an art form that stands still at the zenith of world art. We choose our own paths, then — as Churchill said of architecture — our paths take us forward.
After thirty years of designing schools and libraries plus a number of lesser important buildings, while helping bring my firm into the present age of technology, I decided before I became too senile, I’d make a full-throated effort at writing. Not that I’m great at it, nor that I was ever the greatest architect, nor the greatest long distance runner. That doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t. What does is waking every morning to work at something with passion.
Like I said at the start, I’m working on it.
CODA
The NY Times had a recent piece about Black enterprises struggling to survive in Rochester in the shadows of another once-thriving city in the industrial Northeast. ‘Black Capitalism’ Promised a Better City for Everyone. What Happened? by Michael Corkery and photographs by Todd Heisler. The article makes only a passing reference to the city’s past, overlooking the fact it houses a rare Zen Center.
I remembered Scot describing the beautiful residential streets in Rochester, born from Kodak and Xerox, and the secondary industries those two supported. They were the Apples of their day. With my own fondness for Kodak Kodacolor Gold and a song by Paul Simon, hearing Scot’s description, I figured he was heading to a good place. So setting the newspaper aside, I did my requisite Google search to see what I could find.
“Founded in 1966 by the late Roshi Philip Kapleau, author of The Three Pillars of Zen, the Rochester Zen Center is one of the oldest and largest organizations dedicated to the practice of Zen Buddhism in this country. In 1986 Bodhin Kjolhede was formally installed as Roshi Kapleau’s Dharma-successor and Abbot of the Center. Roshi Kjolhede continues to lead the Zen Center today.”
from the Rochester Zen Center’s website
Scot is listed on the website as secretary. If I’m right, he’s the dude at upper right, smiling like he knows a good joke.
