THE ALTAR

Moving always reminds me that awareness of my process is essential to my well being. 

I moved last month ... again. I have moved about thirty times in forty-seven years. So moving in my life is not as big a deal as some psychologists suggest. I am inured to much of the chaos which brings others to the brink of psychosis. Reading about the vagabond nature of various holy men in history has never impressed me. I get it. If you want to expand your view of the Universe, you have to move around and shake off the tentacles of false security. There is no absolute security in this life.

The process of taking a hard look at just about every object and person in my life is an ongoing one for me. But moving sharpens my vision. Picking up objects and feeling their weight wakens me to the severity and mercilessness of gravity. Looking skeptically at that object which I may have moved twenty times over a quarter century brings my lazy sentimentality to my attention. Questioning the worth of some beloved kitchen utensil which was never used brings levity and liberation, as I toss it in the bin. Realizing that my most cherished kitchen utensil may be the weathered wooden spoon which stirs my morning oatmeal puts technology in perspective. 

Then there is my Buddhist altar.

When I was 36, I decided to move to Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod. I was working two 16-hour overnight shifts a week at a prestigious psychiatric hospital outside of Boston. I had worked it all out. I could come to Boston for two days a week. I could then support a life for the rest of the week in one of the world's most picturesque and most gay-friendly towns. There were minor complications. For example, I took a small one-room cottage in which I decided to squeeze a sizable unsold inventory of my part-time Boston antiques business. Living with about twenty five ticking and chiming clocks was just one of the inconveniences this presented. Commuting the 120 miles each way was another weekly challenge. But my desire for the life outweighed my inertia. My process was deliberate and determined. 

I met Arthur right away. A late night assignation led to an ongoing acquaintance. I would say friendship, but Arthur was simply not friendly. He determined early on that I was to be his Buddhist acolyte. Since I was new in town and Arthur seemed well established, I played along. He introduced me to a form of Japanese Nichiren Buddhism. I liked its challenges. The first of these, learning to chant medieval Japanese in cadence twice a day while kneeling on the floor, challenged my aversion to religion and absolute ineptitude at learning other languages. But I managed. I became an enthusiastic practitioner. I became a member of a small and growing Buddhist community in Provincetown.  Eventually, I dedicated a small second one-room cottage, part of my rental, to the community as a chanting center. 

Having a home altar was a requirement. The altar, comprised primarily of some form of cabinet, called a butsudan in Japanese, held a scroll, a copy of a calligraphic inscription of Nichiren Daishonin, a 12th century monk considered the Japanese Buddha by Nichiren Buddhists. This altar is intended as the focus of the chanting of excerpts from The Lotus Sutra. Nichiren was mad about this particular teaching of Gautama Buddha (c.563 BC - 483 BC). I gets very esoteric. 

My recent altar dilemma arose with my move. I moved to Manhattan from Provincetown in late 1987. I left my Provincetown Buddhist friends but connected with new Manhattan Buddhist friends. These Buddhists, some from Japan, were big-city Buddhists. I chanted in Greenwich Village. Our host was a chic professional photographer. The group was small but intense. Its leader was a Japanese man who seldom smiled. Unlikely as it seemed, he took a liking to me. 

Soon I was leading evening chanting sessions at the insistence of the group leader. My appreciation of the irony of my leading chanting in ancient Japanese never wore off. I did not surrender my sense of humor to my practice. On a grandiose whim, I purchased an elaborate hand-made butsudan from Japan. I bought it in a posh shop on the Upper West Side. Then I purchased an old Korean medicine chest. I placed the butsudan on the medicine chest eventually. They comprise my current altar. For some years, my altar, a futon without frame and a round leaf table with shortened legs were my only furniture. I lived like a rural Japanese. On the floor. I even denied myself the luxury of carpets. 

I have to say, I've never slept better than I did back then. All that getting up and down builds quite a bit of exercise into the average day. But it certainly complicated my love life. Inviting someone up to my place required lengthy explanation. Only the most ardent accepted my invitations. I suppose, on one level, it was a good sorting device. And sex on the floor has its benefits.

That altar has now been with me for nearly thirty years. It has occupied many spaces in that time. But I considered leaving it behind with this move. 

Moving from a large house to a three-room apartment with a partner triggered my deepest skepticism about possessions of all kinds. Scores of trash bags were filled. It seemed endless. I repeatedly looked over at my altar, snug in its niche of my large garret room. It had found that niche like it always has from place to place. A narrow piece of out-of-the-way wall that just seems perfect for its size and shape. Once placed, it seems to preside over its environment with silent elegance. This time, however, I was unsure if my process of downsizing could accommodate it. 

I tried putting it up for adoption. I wrote to the local Nichiren group and received no reply. I asked around. Respondents to my outreach seemed to want the pieces for various reasons other than Buddhist practice. I shuddered at the thought of passing it in a consignment store window. This has happened to me before with other things I have given away. So, I put the whole business aside in favor of doing what had to be done with the move. The altar presided over the vacated house, unmoved, throughout our actual move. It was left behind, there in its garret niche.

A week after all the furniture had been placed and boxes emptied here in the new digs, I was drinking an afternoon coffee at the dining table, which is at one end of an open living space. My eyes were wandering around the new room. I was appreciating its symmetry. I was marveling at how much better our furniture looked in it. Its scale worked well with our things. Then I saw the space near the glass wall which opens to the balcony. "Again, " I thought with a mixture of resignation and amusement. 

Days later, the space was occupied by my altar. It fits perfectly in this new space, a quiet corner of this large room. When I am alone in the room, I am always aware of the altar. I do not often approach it. It is there, in its space. I am in mine. While I am fully aware that it is an object much like any other, I am also aware I have infused its presence with meaning, not attachment or sentimental admiration. Perhaps it is the concrete representation of my refusal to give up on myself, my individual identity. If so, it is not very Buddhist. And perhaps I am not. I no longer place much stock in some words, English or medieval Japanese. I do know that another move is inevitable if not prevented by my final move from existence. Whether or not the altar and I travel together through that process remains to be seen. Perhaps that open question is indeed Buddhist.