Dressing for Dancing

Seven hundred years ago Hafez of Shiraz wrote a poem that someone reminded me of yesterday. 

By the way, please don’t read ‘God’ and flick to the next page. God/divine here is referring to something that is not the God of anyone's childhood religion. It’s a poem, so a more flexible use of the word is allowed, right? 

A Divine Invitation

You have been invited to meet The Friend.

No one can resist a Divine Invitation.

That narrows down all our choices to just two:

We can come to God dressed for dancing

Or be carried on a stretcher to God’s ward.

So later, when someone sent me this:

‘A few of us will be mu-ing our way past midnight at the dojo to celebrate David’s 70th. 

You are welcome to join us from 10’, 

I found myself ready for dancing. 

Now you may not know what mu-ing is, but then, neither did I. You may not go out in the evening much, especially in the middle of winter, but then, neither do I. You may never stay out after ten thirty, but then neither do I. You may not spend time in dojos doing strange things from other cultures, but then, you get my drift.

The ideas and thoughts that come into your mind about how this is not your thing, how you may not enjoy it, how embarrassed you will feel, how you don’t even know what this is, that you will get cold and it will ruin tomorrow if you don’t get enough sleep, these are the thoughts that thwart your dressing for dancing. Yesterday, this being my year of letting go, I chose not to take any notice.

The mu in ‘mu-ing’ refers to a koan, a Zen question for which there is no answer in our normal perspective, but that answers itself when you have a zen perspective. The best known one is ‘What is the sound of one hand clapping?’ The idea is not to work it out like a mental puzzle, but to let it sit, percolate, and enlighten you, for however many decades that might take. The koan goes like this:

A monk asked Jôshû in all earnestness, 

‘Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?’ 

Jôshû said, ‘Mu!

Buddha nature is by definition something that every living creature has. That’s all you need to know about it for today. And mu means no in Japanese, or perhaps nothingness. So either a literally untrue answer, or an odd non-answer. Having read a few of these koans, my money is on the odd one.

I wondered, as I washed my hair, if maybe it’s a Buddhist birthday party? A party without alcohol seems a bit of a contradiction in terms, but on second thoughts, tea and my mother-in-law’s left-over vegan mince pies, what’s not to like?

When I told A what I was doing he said, with his typical I'm kidding look, ‘You’re going nowhere to do nothing with a load of other people. You’re all crazy’, and went back to watching a man take apart a 1970s toaster one tiny screw at a time.

I confess that more than once on the walk to the dojo I found I was explaining to myself that the chances of my being raped and murdered were so small I didn’t need to worry. That a young man would statistically be more of a target than me. Without being aware of it, I had got caught up in the irrational fears of a woman alone in empty streets. I didn’t feel afraid in my body. But I was thinking afraid thoughts. 

Once I had noticed the way my mind was trying to entice me onto that metaphorical stretcher, I naturally opened up and saw the pattern of red lights on the higher tower blocks of the city, festive like the Christmas lights still up at home. And then I started feeling the pleasure my body was taking in the rhythm of the walk, in the warm satisfaction of the movement after a holiday season spent mostly in a chair. The mild air and empty streets of the place where I belong. By the time I got to the dojo I was smiling, my heart wide open in my chest. 

Tiptoeing into the room in my socks, I found three men in comfortable black kneeling facing each other and humming long low notes. There was a mat waiting for me. I was late. I was embarrassed and in my head practised saying it wasn't my fault - it hadn't been made clear that I should be punctual. I kneeled and started to hum as best I could. 

In my mind's eye I saw A laughing his head off. 

I found my chest constricted and I couldn’t sustain my note as long as the others could. And anyway I didn’t want them to hear me and my note stood out naturally from being higher than theirs. I wondered which note to choose, the same as theirs, harmonising or different. I wondered what I could do to make my note sound like it was coming from a relaxed belly. In other words I was in my head and making up stories. Stories that were probably what was making it so difficult to sing. I made up a story about how that proved I was a hopeless case. 

I believe that this is what mu is about: that believing that thinking is the best way to decide is the choice that gets you onto the stretcher and out of the dance.

I start to wonder what is wrong with me. That perhaps I could excuse my inability to sing freely by telling them about those itchy eyes that lasted all of three hours earlier in the week? Is it all right that my left foot is so numb it feels swollen to twice it’s normal size? If I don’t move will it go black and fall off? Writing this it’s obvious how absurd and extreme some of the ideas I have can be. But it took me a very very long time to notice. It's lucky for me that it was a long session.

I finally do notice. I let go of the thinking and focus on producing a note from my belly, gently bringing my focus back when it drifts. After a time there are no thoughts pulling at me that I can't ignore. The rhythm of my breathing softens. And the note that is now rising from my belly picked itself.

The complex and ever-changing sound we are making envelops and vibrates me. It's as if the different voices are harmonics of one huge sound bigger than all of us. Bigger than London. As if my own sustained note is just one pipe of the universal organic organ. Peace flows outwards without pause, riding the waves of sound.

‘Ding, ding, ding, ding’ my inviter pronounces, having forgotten to set the timer. I wonder how he timed it so well when I had forgotten time altogether.

In the tea break we talk about the things people talk about - stiff legs and hip replacements, British artists of the 1990s, whether there could be only one factory that makes all the mince pies. 

And then we go back to humming, this time with more comfortable cushions.

Leaving at one seems right, so I do, and I dance with the night and the light through the clear air all the way home.