You know you’re in Millions country when you’re talking to Abbot Myogen Steve Stücky.
In the presence of the very Millions, time dilates so that fear slows down long enough so you can regard what you fear. Seeing the world through Millions-colored goggles allows you to see where the constriction gives way and allows some space for the next breath.
Here is an excerpt from a 2008 interview in which Steve Stücky sings the millions about the difference between fighting a fire and meeting a fire.
So I was interested in that language as we were going through the weeks between when the lightning struck and when the fire actually came to Tassajara. During that interval, it came up again and again. Are you going to fight the fire, and I said, well not exactly, I don’t have that same feeling, and at the same time, I don’t want to diminish the power of fire.
I was thinking, also, I don’t want to diminish the power of any other person, any other being, any other friend of mine however they are manifesting. I want to let them have their full power. That doesn’t mean, however, I don’t establish some boundary or that I don’t give them some very strict feedback.
So with fire, I think, Okay, I’m giving some very strict feedback:
I’m saying, you can go here, please you can go around, but this line here, it makes more of a difference.
So we have the oneness and twoness of things. The oneness of fire, the fire in my own body, the fire burning the manzanita, the trees and the grasses. And we also have the distinction. The fire, in one sense it’s quite easy for me to actually to live with and have in my own body, and at another point it’s too much, and I know this whole expression, this whole being would dissolve in the fire if it’s too much. There’s a certain range in which, okay we can have a relationship, and beyond that range, it’s completely beyond what a human being can participate with.
So there’s a relational aspect always to attention. You’re giving attention to something. Attention also relates to tending, caring, caring for something. So there’s a relational aspect: there is connection and there’s duality. So having a very flexible mind and at the same time a present mind, being able to be present with whatever it is, as long as it’s possible to be aware of anything. That allows you to respond in a way that takes care of both sides of that. The absolute oneness where there’s no separation – in fact there’s no me and there’s no fire – and then there’s also me and there’s fire.
And there’s tending, just as I would take care of my own body, accepting the limitations of having a body, being a body. The limitations of being a body means, okay this is taking care of this reality, this side, being a body.
So that’s a very intimate kind of quality, so then meeting fire is taking care of this body —and this body extends to taking care of the room that we eat in, the roof over this body. The roof over the head of this particular body, and others.
It’s actually choosing to be human, in addition to fully recognizing that this being human is given as a kind of a gift. Many causes and conditions and all these factors have come together to produce this. The entire evolutionary history of beings has produced this moment, this particular body that you have and that I have right now.
When you begin to reflect on that you realize that you can’t even begin to name all those factors, it’s inconceivable and the fact of it being right here now is so vivid. From this place, fully acknowledging all that, fully accepting the limits, and then the freedom actually comes from accepting the limits, that as soon as that’s accomplished, as soon as that’s the conception, the vow and that’s where you’re living, then you have a tremendous freedom, and then you take care of the fire, and you take care of the place.
I didn’t know whether I’d be able to breathe or not. I hadn’t thought about being able to see, but there was a point at which my eyes were burning so intensely I couldn’t see, but then I realized I hadn’t put on my goggles, so I had to stop and step back and take care of my eyes, put on the goggles. It actually made a big difference. There were various times when I was working close to the flames, and it’s, if I take another step this way it’s too intense, I can’t stand it so I have to step back away from the flame. Or sometime I can move in quickly, take she shovel knock down some fire, move back out
There’s that kind of a dance going on. You could say on the one hand I’m constantly surprised because I don’t know what’s happening from one second to the next. On the other hand, I’m completely in my element. It’s just the body mind everything really knows what to do. There are some tools we have at hand and I am able to use, but I also know the limits of that, so I have to pay attention to that. If the smoke is too intense, okay, I have to duck down, go below or maybe there’s something else happening – Mako is holding the firehose and I can duck under that stream of water. That’s a big relief.